ON THE WAVE, 



OTHER POEMS. 

By BUEL con KLIN. 



rJo. Slic 



NEW YORK: 
THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

AGENTS FOR THE TRADE. 
1879. 



c 



3SJ 

73S- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j'ear 1879, by 

BUEL CONKLIN, 

In the OfEce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Edward O. Jenkins' Print, 
20 North William Street, New York. 



PREFACE 



To say that we arc careless of the impression which 
our labours may stamp upon the public mind, would 
be both remote from our aim and inconsistent with a 
generous purpose ; yet, with the certainty of displeas- 
ing most, I have only to offer for the issue of the 
present incomplete and in many ways defective work, 
the hope which has given origin to it, that, in ena- 
bling me to retain possession of that spot which the 
memory of past generations and the recollections of 
my youth have rendered dear to me, it may offer to 
me that asylum of future leisure and retirement that 
shall be crowned with the consummation of an effort 
that, to use the expression of a greater, the public 
shall not willingly let die. 

Providence may deny us the fulfillment of the latter 



4 PREFACE. 

expectation, as fortune may defeat ns of the former, 
but to hope for less would be unworthy of the effort. 

In conclusion, I would only remark that, should 
this venture meet with the leniency and encourage- 
ment which shall warrant a further publication, the 
continuation of the main subject of the present 
volume and of the versification of Ossian will be 
speedily offered to the press. 

Cold Spring, L. I., March \st. 



ON THE WAVE 



CANTO FIRST. 

Chaste Contemplation come — now while the 
hearth 
Glows with the cheerful embers, and the wind 
Howls pitiless along the snow-clad earth, 
And icy chains the crystal waters bind, 
Where silent streams through naked wood- 
lands wind, 
Fain would my Muse obedient to thy wand 

Recall from the oblivion of the mind 
The shadowy scenes, the romantic of a land 
Fair in its stately palms, its streams, and moun- 
tains grand. 

But that the time to less ambitious themes 
Directs us and the many cares of life, 

(5) 



6 ON THE WAVE. 

That ever mounting to alloy the dreams 

Of that bright land and fill with inward strife, 

Preclude the effort and the soul deprive 
Of that blest calm, so needful to our task: 

Oh, may that happiest hour to us arrive, 

Of leisure, while remains the force, to unmask 
The theme of labored thought ; 'tis all of time 
I ask. 

Meanwhile as fancy prompts, do thou portray, 
O Muse, our fortune on the pathless main ; 

With various thought, speed thou the time away 
While storms endanger or while calms detain, 
Until the lofty summits of the chain 

Of cloud-clothed Andes, dawn upon our sense, 
And the wild, wooded hills of Darien, 

Nature's great pathway thro' the depths im- 
mense. 

Arise to reunite her sister continents. 

There rest thy wing, till time thro' loftier flight 
And brighter scenes again shall point the way ; 

When Autumn pours around her checkered light 
On faded fields and over woodlands gray, 



ON THE WAVE. 7 

Then, if your judgment shall approve our lay, 
Ye who first taught our infant Muse to sing, 

And with increasing interest watched essay 
To rise superior on the epic wing, 
Again our hand may wake the harp's harmonious 
string. 

But thou, my Muse, ere yet thy task shall end, 
One effort still I ask, to friendship due : 

Oh, let not gratitude forget to lend 

Its heartfelt tribute to our verse, but through 
Each part let all her virtues blend anew : 

She who e'en with parental hand and care 
Us through the lovely round of nature drew, 

And taught in every stream and floweret fair. 

The hidden hand of Heaven to find imprinted 
there. 

Now had the year revolved and the slant sun, 
'Mid circumambient mists and tempests born, 

His journey through Aquarius had begun. 
And northward beat the way from Capricorn: 
Still brighter glowing each successive morn, 

When with all sail spread to the favouring wind, 



8 ' ON THE WAVE. 

And from its faithful hold the anchor torn, 
We left the twin-born cities fast behind, 
Whose shores the white-winged ships of com- 
merce widely lined. 

Far to the south our devious course we lay, 

To climes remote from Winter's rule severe : 
Where brighter suns diffuse a brighter day. 

And Summer, sweet companion of the year, 

Is constant ever, and is ever dear. 
Along our side, the billows calmly blue, 

In slow succession rise and disappear; 
So fade the distant cities from our view. 
Till lost in the remote horizon's azure hue. 

Still on our right the shores of Jersey lay, 

In all the bleakness of the wintry reign ; 
No more her toiling sons devote the day 

To the rude labors of the fallow plain ; 

Content in ease, to spend the summer's gain ; 
Or with the whirling flail and peasant might, 

From Autumn's golden sheaves they beat the 
grain : 
In retrospective view, their chief delight, 



ON THE WAVE. 9 

And by the social hearth to pass the hour at 
night. 

And thou, fair isle, shall I behold no more 

Thy wooded summits and thy silvery streams, 
Where childhood's bright- winged moments 
glided o'er, 
Half in reality and half in dreams? 
Oh, this indeed is parting, all it seems — 
A sudden weight of woe subdues my soul, 
With the sad thought, that nevermore the 
beams 
Of day, for us o'er that bright spot may roll, 
Toward which life's hopes all turn, as systems to 
their pole. 

It is as though the sun itself were torn 
From earth away — and the reality 

To come, burst sudden on the mind — forlorn. 
In all its future prospect : Oh, to be 
Thus snatched from all we love — whom not 
to see. 

Will sadden all our being, and from scenes 
Endeared from childhood's earliest memorj'", 



lO ON THE WAVE. 

Which from our thoughts nor time nor distance 

weans, 
Nor fancy can forget when slumber intervenes. 

And ye, alas ! oh, who will smooth the way, 
That toward the grave conducts your quick- 
ening pace ? 
Ye who first gave my being to the day. 

And taught my faltering steps life's upright 

race. 
Gray with impending years and with the trace 
Of weighty care and sorrow's blighting hand, 

Deeply engraven on the time-worn face, 
Lo ! now where wintry age, along the land, 
Stern in its look descends ; stern, yet severely 
grand. 

Saa, yet to hard necessity resigned, 

I see you gazing o'er the desolate scene 
Of ice-bound waves and hills in snow enshrined ; 

Gray in their naked woodlands, late so green ; 

And over which, so recent fell the sheen 
Of Autumn's many hues and softened light : 

Yet hope still sits upon the brow serene ; 



ON THE WAVE. II 

And with her sun-tipt wing wafts off the night, 
That rushes on the soul at the overwhelming 
sight. 

She points you to a brighter year, when Spring 

Shall come to enliven all the scene again ; 
And joyful, from her flowing lap shall fling 

The flowery mantle o'er the ravaged plain. 

Then shall the morn awaken with the strain 
Of many happy voices joined in one ; 

Then fields grow green again with springing 
grain 

And Plenty from her horn, on toils begun, 
The crowning promise pour of large reward 
when done. 

Then through familiar walks, through verdant 
bowers. 
Where the fair rose and fragrant woodbine 
climb, 
*Twill please again to wander ; amid flowers 
And woodland melody to pass the time ; 
And oft with voice subdued, to swell the 
chime. 



12 ON THE V/AVE. 

Of heartfelt gratitude, that, uncompelled, 

Burst from all nature, to her God sublime ; 
From bird and brute and insect close concealed, 
O'er hill and lowly vale, through forest and 
through field. 

There, as along the winding paths ye tread, 
With admiration mute, or pensive mind. 

Oft shall the kind, parental tear be shed. 
As from the way ye turn aside to find. 
My name engraven deep in the smooth rind 

Of weeping birch or tall aspiring fir ; 

And sad recall, how oft in love conjoined 

We wandered there in summers past, with her 

Whom from the heavenward path, no trials 
could deter. 

Mild was the voice of her, that gentle friend 
Of early years, the days that come no more : 

Oft in my silent thoughts its tones ascend. 
Responsive echoing to the shadowy shore : 
They come familiar, as in days before ; 

And dwell amid my grief, like beams of light, 
That with the early morning wander o'er 



ON THE WAVE. 1 3 

Veragua's thousand hills and mingle bright 
With the gray mists that dwell still in the steps 
of night. 

Her shade yet wanders through familiar ways : 
The still, the lonely paths of silent thought : 
Her voice is in the sighing wind that strays 
Through Autumn pines ; her falling steps are 

caught 

Amid the rustling leaves; her smile oft brought 

To mind, by modest flowers that lonely bloom, 

Near fading woodlands, once her loved resort, 

When o'er the Autumnal fields the sunbeams 

roam, 
And the silence of the grove is heard amid its 
gloom. 

By moonlit banks, near which the cadence 
soft. 
Of Summer waves upon the pebbly shore, 
Rose pleasant to the ear, repeating oft. 
In dying whispers, ocean's solemn roar ; 
By reddening groves, where youthful maids 
explore 



14 ON THE WAVE. ' 

The rustling leaves, In mild October days — 

Brimful of mirth — for Autumn's nutty store. 
By sheltered hillsides where the slanting rays 
Of winter fell serene and tempted to the place ; 

By sparkling streams, that bright in spring de- 
scend. 
From mossy hills rejoicing in their flow. 
Thence thro' green fields, thro' flowery pastures 
wend, 
Where herds to bleating flocks responsive low ; 
By all in nature lovely here below, 
All that to higher thought conducts the mind. 

Or fans in human breasts love's virtuous glow, 
Or through mild melancholy's shades inclined, 
To the pure fount conducts, of feeling, deep, re- 
fined. 

How was our wont to wander, how enjoy. 
Ye banks, ye murmuring waters, ye can tell : 

Ye woodland pastimes, free from the alloy 
Of life's accumulating cares that dwell 
Close partners of our thoughts: ye streams that 
well 



ON I'HE WAVE. 15 

Deep from the silent hills and sweetly stray 
Among the rocks of the wild echoing dell, 
Where light and shadows softly mingled play ; 
And ye, mild, pleasing shades of melancholy say. 

Oh, paths deserted, oh, neglected flowers ! 

Soon shall her rustling step be heard no more ; 
No more her prayers call down the gentle showers, 

No more her hand the drooping stem restore. 

Ne'er shall her form be seen by moonlit shore ; 
Nor joyous laugh, the ear delighted fill : 

Her shade no longer darken in the door; 
No more her voice come from the silent hill : 
Sad Echo repeats no more — no more — her voice 
is still. 

How well does Fancy picture every scene 

Of that dear spot which childhood called its 
own, 
Each flowery bordered walk and sloping green ; 
Each tree by some endearment early known. 
My sire there planted them and they have 
grown 



1 6 ON THE WAVE. 

With me from childhood to their stately forms ; 
How bright, alas ! how soon the years have 
flown, 
And from the shelter of parental arms, 
Reared to the encounter stern, of life's relent- 
less storms. 

Soon as the year with renovated power 
Shot forth the tender bulb from the dank ground, 

And sweetest and the earliest to flower, 

The modest violet shed its fragrance round, 
Glad did I issue forth, within your bound, 

Ye scenes, dear cradle of my Muse, to share 
The bliss infectious, which in every sound, 

In every object of the earth and air. 

With sweet accord of aim, divulged its presence 
there. 

As the glad bee, with Spring's enlivening beam, 
Forth issuing from the hive upon the wing. 

With busy hum, by hillside and by stream. 
Flies where the earliest blossoms of the Spring 
Upon the softened winds their odours fling. 



ON THE WAVE. 1/ 

So did I wander there in blithest mood, 

Soon as the returning birds began to sing ; 
Nor longer blighted by the tempest rude, 
The tender leaflets fringed again the lofty wood. 

Ye scenes dear to remembrance next to those 
Who breathed the living spirit through your 
shades. 

When life at length is nearing to its close, 
And the fond dream of childhood slowly fades, 
Oh may kind fortune to your pleasant glades 

Again my errant steps haply return : 

There while the frosty damp of age invades, 

To pass the remaining days in peace, and learn 

To trim the lamp of faith till it shall brightly burn. 

Though change should come to mar each well- 
known scene. 

And nature riot through thy once trim bowers, 
Still should I not delighted roam between 

Thy tangled copses and neglected flowers. 

Thou Eden of my childhood's happiest hours ? 
And still derive a melancholy joy. 

In tracing, albeit with fancy's waning powers, 



1 8 ON THE WAVE. 

Each mazy round, well pleased with such employ, 
As when I wandered there a careless, happy boy : 

And climb again the heights from whence to 
view 
New England's sister hills, and all the scene 
Of vale and curving shore and waters blue, 
That in extension fair lay stretched between ? 
Not oft more pleasing sight the eye hath seen 
Than from thy mossy hills it hath surveyed 
When Summer's setting sun looked down 
serene 
Upon the silent waters, and the shade 
Of pensive twilight stole along the neighbouring 
glade. 

Those scenes may change to others, but to me 
Time still untouched should leave some charni 
behind ; 

And what its hand defaced, in memory 
Fancy the ready image still would find 
To fill each part endeared to the mind : 

Still should I pause beneath thy rustling trees 

- To hear the wandering spirit of your wind : 



ON THE WAVE. I9 

But lo ! grim Winter comes upon the breeze, 
And with his frosty breath uplifts his whitening 
seas. 

Farewell, ye hills concealed in Arctic snow : 

Ye frosty vales from whence a thousand streams 
Of blue-wreathed smoke through the keen air 
upflow, 
From peaceful fireside hearths, around which 

beams 
The light of warm affection, and the dreams 
Of life, in all its various changes dwell : 

Ye scenes, adieu — adieu ye lakes and streams — 
Bound in the icy chain of Winter's spell ; 
And all ye naked woods and windy plains, 
farewell. 

How sad an echo falls upon the heart — 

'Tis the response of loved ones from the shore, 

Whose voices though the external ear hears not, 

Whose forms though outward vision sees no 

more. 
Yet hath the soul the power, perhaps, to ex- 
plore 



20 ON THE WAVE. 

Beyond the range of circumscribing- sense : 

Nor earth a veil or shadow casts before 
The spiritual eye ; nor medium hath so dense 
The soul cannot transpierce : nor distance so im- 
mense. 

Consolatory thought, sublime if true : 
Though false condolatory still unknown. 

Man, the weak creature of contracted view, 
Unhappy exile of a foreign zone, 
To deeper guilt, profounder darkness prone, 

Still with instinctive light, sighs to regain 

The exalted sphere of consciousness his own, 

Ere yet the sad inheritant of pain, 

Ke wandered forth on earth from Eden's blest 
domain. 

Oh, as the starry realms that move above 
In paths concentric v/ith their orb of light. 

Or the mysterious comets that far rove 
Through intersolar space obscure in night, 
Yet to the sun again direct their flight ; 

As to its fount, whence life and light evolve, 
The errant soul seeks to return of right, 



ON THE WAVE. 21 

As hope, as friendship, love, and faith revolve 
Around their earth-born source, regenerate in 
resolve, 

So in communion may our spirit dwell 

With those we leave behind us, while afar 

We roam on earth and memory weaves her spell, 
To bind us still to those that dearest are, 
As binds the attractive force, the erratic star 

Unto its orbit round the central sun : 
And captive led to love's triumphal car, 

Like heaven's lost meteor, whence its course 
begun, 

So may our wandering feet to childhood scenes 
be won. 

Farewell once more ; my native isle, farewell : 
Oh, let us still defer the final pain 

Of this sad parting ; sad as which befell 

Our parents, when from Eden's blest domain 
They wandered forth, ne'er to return again : 

And such my fate, ne'er to return, may be : 
Yet o'er the bosom of the pathless main. 

Led by the instinctive light of love, in memory 

Oft shall I wander back, dear native isle, to thee. 



22 ON THE WAVE. 

The swift-winged hours pass on, the orb of h'ght 
From the high zenith of his power descends 

With milder radiance to meet the night — 
She, the staid consort of his course, where ends 
His daily triumph, from the hills extends 

Her shadowy arms to welcome his embrace; 
Thence, while eclipsed the luminary wends 

Triumphant in her turn with lesser blaze, 

Forth to conduct her suns from starry realms of 
space. 

The morn, how soon the noon, the night succeed ! 

How soon are past, gone never to return. 
Their round to-morrow's sun again shall lead ; 

For us it may not, haply, what the urn 

Of fate contains. Heaven leaves us not to learn ; 
Till time reveals the glad or stern decree. 

Our joy is in the past ; could we discern 
The future of our lives, it would but be 
To o'erwhelm us with the force of its vast misery. 

The Day has past, majestic Night has come — 
Still night, that brings to weary thought relief: 

Mild solacer of anxious care to some ; 
To some, the gentle confidant of grief. 



ON THE WAVE. 23 

With her obHvion comes the welcome thief 
That robs us of our tedious hours of pain, 
And to the contrite brings Heaven's mild 
reprieve, 
With faith and resolution to sustain 
The doubtful ray of hope, hope ever prone to 
wane. 

Oh, night, grave night, preferred to weary day ; 

Blest period of repose, when the soul seems 
To leave awhile the encumbrance of clay, 

To wander by the silent flowing streams 

With the immortal in the land of dreams: 
The intermediate sphere of heaven and earth, 

Where light celestial mingles with the beams 
Of temporal worlds, and they of heavenly 

birth. 
In near communion stoop, to man of fallen 
worth. 

Welcome, thou kind restorer of our bliss — • 
Come with thy sweet oblivion of our cares ; 

Sleep with thy downy wing, do thou dismiss 
The busy world with all its vain affairs. 



24 ON THE WAVE. 

Thou comest, not heedless of our urgent 
prayers, 
And with thy silent wing dost round us spread 

The gentle influence of all balmy airs ; 
Thou comest, and with thee from the silent 

dead 
In real or fancied form, the spectral world are led. 

On luminous wings formed from the sunbearrhs 
bright, 
Fixed in eternal radiance they come ; 
The ethereal medium rolling into light. 

Compared with which, earth's brightness is 

but gloom. 
Behold, e'en now they advance ; ye clouds, 
make room ; 
Wave your fair palms, ye hills, in sign of joy ; 

Mount, oh my soul, your wings of light assume; 
Oh, bid farewell to earth and its alloy ; 
Haste, thou immortal flame, thy heavenward 
flight employ. 

*Tis but a dream, or lost remote in space, 

Heaven calls their onward flight another way. 



ON THE WAVE. 2$ 

Lo ! nature takes again her wonted phase ; 
Time still advances, earth resumes its sway : 
That call the wandering spirit needs must 
obey, 

And to the shadowy vale of life again 

Repair, to await the summons of the day, 

The remand to toil, for moments passed in vain : 

The kind extension given, probationary pain. 



CANTO SECOND. 

Behold, Aurora from the eastern wave 

Ascends, where nightly ere the shades retire, 
She stoops her in the limpid flood to lave. 

Then turns to meet the genial god of fire. 

Bright from the silent deep he comes, the sire, 
Of venerating earth whom darkness dreads : 

His advent, nature pauses to admire ; 
From sphere to sphere the mild advertence 

spreads, 
Till heaven records the return of the blest light 
it sheds. 



26 ON THE WAVE. 

Unending triumph — always hailed with joy 
In act of rising by the sons of earth — 

No veneration mingled with alloy, 

No fulsome praise paid to unequal worth 
Swells the full heart of man to hail thy birth. 

The hills, the seas rejoice to meet thy rays, 
All nature wakes to light, to life and mirth, 

As the great billow of earth's ceaseless praise. 

Like ocean's tidal wave, rolls onward round its 
face. 

The Day ascends, the wave of joy that flows 

To greet his coming rolls on in advance; 
Man, as the dazzling splendor brighter glows, 

Turns to the sober earth unequal glance ; 

Whence the reflected glories rise to entrance, 
In many a varied form, the enraptured eye ; 

Thus serving by comparison to enhance 
The day's surpassing splendor as on high. 
In its triumphal march, it rolls along the sky. 

How lovely lies the deep, the calm blue sea ! 

The full of majesty, the old of days. 
Beneath the beam in mild tranquillity 

It sleeps, yet all its slumbering might displays 



ON THE WAVE. 2^ 

In the deep silence of its wide embrace. 
So, the gorged Hon, conscious of his right 

As king of wilds, the approach of man sur- 
veys ; 
Unmoved by anger, indisposed to flight, 
Yet in his calm survey shows all his native 
might. 

Oh, thou of chaos sprung and night's broad sway, 

First from the Eternal Spirit procreate ; 
Thou from whose womb sprang to the embrace 
of day. 
Earth with all being in multifarious state ; 
Thou who devouredst thine offspring in thy 
hate, 
Mankind too deep in guilt to be absolved, 
Yet on thy bosom nursed the infant fate 
Of a new world from thence again evolved, 
As ere the birth of time was in high heaven 
resolved, 

Great ocean, hail ! all-present element ! 

Thou who dost set the hmits unto earth — 
To various man, the various extent 

Of empire metest to his fallen worth. 



28 ON THE WAVE. 

Thou of whom Heaven alone recordest the 
birth, 
Of whom the spheres harmonious sing, whence 
came 
Thy flood mysterious — in prehistoric mirth, 
On the high mountains thou hast writ thy 

name — 
In deserts and on rocks left record of thy fame. 

Great instrument of Heaven's creative will — 
Source of all life with which earth burdened 
wings ; 
Sublimity of thought, of power, of skill. 

Type of the unknown, the Infinite whence 

springs 
The First, Great Cause of all essential things ; 
While now thy power my Muse calls to preside. 

And to thy shrine her votive offering brings, 
Strong as thy billows, as thy swelling tide, 
So may our theme enlarge, the verse majestic 
glide. 

Enduring; Flood — what does mankind not owe 
To thy protective, omnipresent hand ? 



ON THE WAVE. 29 

From whence innumerable blessings flow, 
Like kindly fountains in a desert land. 
Thy waves obedient to Divine command, 
From Earth's rough hills have formed her fruit- 
ful plains ; 
Thy waters fertilize her thirsty sand — 
Thine arm dividest her too broad domains, 
And the aggressive foot of Pride and Power 
restrains. 

In the first ages of the world, mankind 

Harmonious tilled earth's then continuous 
plain, 

Till pride and avarice with ambition joined 
To blunt the edge of justice and maintain 
Of wide dissension the unhappy reign. 

Then vnirdcr bared his arm, and unrestrained, 
Spread universal terror through the plain ; 

Till Heaven, incensed, in its just ire ordained 

An end to all man's race, save those the ark 
contained. 

Yet vice still dwelt fixed in the human breast ; 
Not unforejudged of Heaven, but from the days 



30 ON THE WAVE. 

Of Adam and of Cain, the sad bequest 
Of time to each succeeding age and race; 
And still with man and earth's renewed phase, 

Destined again to spread, as from its source. 
Weak and unknown, some mighty river strays, 

Augmenting, till with the o'erwhelming force 

Of many mingled tides, it rolls along its course. 

Had not the Allwise, what time the flood retraced 

Its rise, earth's form remodeled, whereby land 
From land was thence divided and effaced, 

What stood superfluous to the Maker's hand ; 

That thence forth on, man's late united band, 
Should dwell in lands by seas remote disjoined, 

And individual vices that expand 
To national evils, thereby be confined ; 
To nations a rebuke, not to blot ail mankind. 

Through the new world, the savage and the race 
From civilization fallen to the abyss 

Of cannibalism, dwelt in various phase — 
Whom Lucifer, prince of infernal skies, 
Skilled in all arts of greatness or of vice ; 

Through Asia, China, and the barbaric horde. 
From India's mongrel source that takes its rise, 



ON THE WAVE. 3 1 

By inland floods and deserts scarce explored, 
From Christian lands withheld, till to new faith 
restored. 

Afric to the degenerate sons was given. 

Of Canaan, thither from the chosen land. 
Of persecuting kindred early driven — 

Cursed with the sign of Heaven's first repri- 
mand — 

Where, by the deep and Ocean's desert sand, 
Encompassed and secluded from mankind, 

In the dark reign of sin's benighting hand, 
They dwelt unhaply, but for man less blind. 
Haply to desert wilds, remotely thus confined. 

Exiled and wandering from the paths of grace, 
Till Heaven relenting, man should cease to wage 

The exterminating war of race with race. 
That stained the annals of his earlier stage, 
And mild humanity arise to assuage. 

With the fair promise of a happier state. 
The asperity with which, from age to age. 

Their days were lengthened by the hand of fate, 

Beneath the curse of Heaven, fulfilled in human 
hate. 



32 ON THE WAVE. 

Nor less man to thine arm, thou mighty sea, 

The preservation of art and science owes, 
Than the fulfilment of the destiny 

Of race distinctive to time's latest close. 

Art in the earlier stages whence man rose, 
Coy and unpolished roamed earth's wild domain ; 

Or only seen where peaceful flocks repose, 
In simple habit of the ungraceful swain, 
Sporting with shepherds rude upon the aban- 
doned plain. 

But in the laps of ages man at length 

Forsook the life nomadic of his race. 
And seeking safety in united strength, 

From growing strife and pride's imperious 
ways, 

The walls of mighty towns essayed to raise. 
Then Art, emerging from her native shade, 

Gave to the rising work the touch of grace. 
And sought to impress, in column and arcade. 
Whatever of sublime in nature is displayed. 

And Science, from the clouds descending, came 
To Art's assistance, whence, with wondrous 
toil. 



ON THE WAVE. 33 

They builded to themselves a lasting name 
Where Nile enriches Egypt's fruitful soil ; 
Then through the Hellenic fields, blest with 
the spoil 
Of peaceful flocks and flowing with the Muse, 

When Discord had at length ceased to embroil, 
Art with her handmaid Science sought to infuse 
The touch o( perfect grace through all of man's 
produce. 

Thence rose those stately temples whose remains 
The admiration won, justly bestowed. 

Of all succeeding time, till Grecian plains 
Became the field of classic Art's abode. 
Yet later on the Latin soil. Art sowed 

Her noblest gems of architectural grace, 
And in the triumph of the conquerors rode 

To the supinest honors of the race : 

The glory of their time and of their vanished days. 

But when from the vague regions of the north. 
As from its hive a swarm of angry bees, 

The horde of fierce Barbarians issuing forth, 
Like a vast conflagration in the breeze. 



34 ON THE WAVE. 

Spread devastation to the unbending knees 
Of Rome, the eternal city to whose head 

Bowed kingly power and principalities, 
To the devouring flames then Learning wed 
Her treasures in despair, and Art and Science fled. 

Heaven then, whose foresight no event eludes, 

By Ocean's outstretched arm screened their 
demise. 
While wandering lone in desert solitudes, 

They sought a safer field in which to rise. 

Long in Arabian tents, in shepherd guise, 
They dwelt obscure, whence to emerge at last, 

As from their ark of safety, to the skies 
Of the Alhambra, when, the tempest past. 
The wrecked affairs of man Peace had again re- 
cast. 

Then the Dark Age o'er Christendom anew 
Diffused the gloom of its oblivious reign, 

And Learning for a period withdrew 

To a remote corner of the earth's domain, 
Where the Icelandic Muse the scanty plain 

Tilled beyond range of man's ambitious mind, 



ON THE WAVE. 35 

And Ocean on its bosom nursed again 
The immortal genius of the past, consigned 
In safety till the return of reason to mankind. 

Not yet had Science taught earth's conquerors 
The path to empire still beyond the sea, 

Where the wise Ruler of the universe 

Had builded the broad land of Liberty — 
Home of the brave, the birthright of the free— 

From the ambitious tyrants of our race, 
Withheld till Freedom's cause in unity, 

With truth and justice, should demand a place 

W^hereon to build their reign upon a broader base. 

Then to the New World, thou Ocean, held before 

Impassable, safe conduct gave to one, 
Whom heaven and vast adventure called to ex- 
plore 
The path of Progress toward the setting sun ; 
Where Freedom, dawning with the night be- 
gun 
Of effete empire, waited to receive 

With hand of welcome, denied erewhile to 
none. 



36 ON THE WAVE. 

The oppressed of every land who for relief 
Fled the despotic arm of power and bigot belief. 

Nor less thy later sons, Columbia, owe 
To Ocean's wise division of our sphere, 

The safety of their shores from foreign foe 
Inflated by successful war's career, 
Than they of old, our Saxon sires, appear 

To have owed to their alliance with the sea, 
That liberty to every Briton dear, 

Who with less than parental equity, 

Us would have forced unwise to bow the subject 
knee. 

Witness, ye lands, when Gaul's mad despot 
merged 

All Europe in one field of human gore. 
And thrones and empires to destruction verged, 

Witness how Ocean guarded then our shore 

From the fierce rage of all-involving war : 
Since, irrepressible held beyond the main, 

Or slumbering only for a time to restore 
Its spent resources, thence to rise again 
With still increasing dread and ruin in its train. 



ON THE WAVE. 3/ 

Conscience then ruled the transatlantic mind. 
And jealous of the universal good, 

The individual will its grasp resigned : 

Nor may the hand of despots cross the flood 
To fix injustice and the reign of blood 

Upon thy shores, blest of all tongues that speak — 
Nor let the sons of Liberty to stud 

Her crown with glory, Heaven's displeasure seek 

By joining in the old world oppression of the 
weak. 

Nor be the ambition to control the fates 
Of kindred powers, the basis of our ties 

Of mutual intercourse with neighbouring States. 
Extended empire breeds extended vice, 
And to imperious rule gives room to rise, 

With the fair prospect of unpunished sway — • 
Nor can the hand of justice e'en chastise 

Always the offender ere the mind gives way. 

And ripe Rebellion springs armed to the light 
of day. 

Within the spacious limits which the will 
Of the Divine Creator through the laws 



38 ON THE WAVE. 

Of nature has established to fulfill 

The sacred mission of fair Freedom's cause, 
Contented let thy sons, Columbia, pause — 

Nor look beyond their continental seas 

For fields of future power or fame's applause : 

In peaceful arts, in science and the increase 

Of virtue and of truth, their greater glory these. 

Nor if, in the contiguous continent, 

The hand of Heaven may have abandoned man 
To lasting discord in just punishment 

Of vice inherent, be it ours to fan 

The party strife : nor interference plan. 
Save in behalf of wronged humanity, 

Or if to encourage Freedom's wavering van, 
And her probative field to guarantee 
From the too meddling rule of lands beyond 
the sea. 

Where the Atlantic o'er their mutual strand, 
Wooes the Pacific to its rough embrace. 

And waits impatient of the tardy hand 
Of Progress to confer the crowning grace, 
There let Ambition stay her eager pace ; 



ON THE WAVE. 39 

Nor Justice, blinded by the desire of gold, 

To Avarice yield to accelerate the days 
Of unripe cession to our peaceful fold, 
Whence not with honour, wealth, or fame may 
be enrolled. 

Thou, Ocean, be our bound, thou boundless sea, 
To whom our country, first of Heaven-blest 
shores, 
Ov/es the vast rise of its prosperity, 

And all the wealth of nature's ample stores : 
Thou whose broad bosom is the fruitful source 
Of all earth's wandering floods, which like the 
veins 
That build the human system in their course, 
Impart fertility to earth's domains. 
And with the signs of life, clothe its else desert 
plains. 



CANTO THIRD. 

Still sleep the winds and silent as some lake, 
Their might the slumbering waters still sub- 
due ; 



40 ON THE WAVE. 

And the proud ship scarce longer leaves a wake 
In the smooth glass to note her progress thro'. 
Against the cloudless welkin's depth of blue, 

The drooping sails move idly to and fro ; 
Reflected by the flood again to view : 

White from its azure depths like clouds that 
slow 

Along the hazy sides of distant mountains flow. 

Thy silence, Ocean, brings not solitude, 

For solitude dwells not upon thy breast : 
She flies the contest of thy billows rude, 
Nor trusts the uncertain temper of thy rest. 
When most thou seemest lone, then most we 
invest 
Thy presence with the emblems of thy might. 
And thou dost shed o'er us an influence 
blest, 
Which lends the mariner's hours an easier flight, 
And in the calm o^ thought imparts a pure 
delight. 

Thy lot, O seaman, were not one of toil, 
Were nature always constant in her mood : 



ON THE WAVE. 4I 

But sometimes on the waves she pours her oil, 
Sometimes with tempest wakes the billows 

rude. 
Now slumbering like an infant calm and nude ; 
Now rising with the madman's giant force ; 
Now like a weeping maiden all subdued, 
Dost thou not wrestle with her on thy course, 
Distrustful most, when least her wrathful temper 
soars ? 

But thou art nature's child, and on the breast 
Of pathless ocean art thou still at home : 

And let the angry billow rear its crest — 
Let the dark tempest of the midnight roam 
Demoniac on the waters till the foam 

Of ocean whelm thy labouring bark in spray, 
And the forked lightning cleave the o'erarch- 
ing dome 

Of midnight shadow, till the blinding ray 

Lights but the scene with deeper darkness to 
dismay. 

Undaunted thou dost meet her terrors grave. 
And with the hand of death laid on thine arm, 



42 ON THE WAVE. 

Dost battle with the might of wind and wave. 
And every force of nature raised to harm. 
Thou dreadest her not ; or if she wake alarm, 
'Tis but the sudden impulse of the child 

That fears chastisement of the maternal 
palm, 
Yet clings unto the hand that drives it wild, 
And with the threatened pain at length grows 
half beguiled. 

And cradled in the lap of ocean, thou 

Dost watch on wave and sky her many signs. 
Intelligent, as from its mother's brow. 
With dawning intellect the babe divines 
Her secret joy, or reads thereon the lines 
Of pain or passion, of reproof or love : 

Yet dost thou sport with fortune, whether 
shines 
The day, or hides itself in clouds above ; 
Or if the night of storm succeed the day's re- 
move. 

1 

Yon mist unto the sun radiant ascending, 
Speaks it not to thine eye of tempest near ; 



ON THE WAVE. 43 

Of the stern billow and the wild wind wending, 
With death and ruin in its swift career? 
But so it is, that nature's side severe. 
Clothed in some form of beauty lures thy 
thought 
From toil and danger and from shipwreck 
near, 
The dread attendants of thy checkered lot. 
As from the conjured things of fancy that are not. 

And so it should be — let the hour advance 

Oblivious of the future's gathering night ; 
And be our lot cast on the wave of chance. 

What reck we, so the present be but bright ? 

Nature so mingles with our joy her spite. 
That fain we would forget the evil time 

For one short hour of unalloyed delight : 
And we would seek through clime and unknown 

clime. 
Amid the wreck of worlds, one view of the 
sublime. 

Ocean, thou art silent — dost thou give no sign 
Of kindred life and feeling — thou the strong ? 



44 ON THE WAVE. 

And the dark winds that kiss thy waves supine, 
Or lift their crests, where tarry they so long? 
So vast the silence is, it seems half wrong 

To wake the depths of nature from their sleep — 
E'en with the feeble effort of our song : 

Yet fancy wearied of the monotonous deep, 

Our sense of time's slow space in thought's wide 
realm would steep. 

Oh thou, the solace of our hidden pain, 

Waft thou the hour harmonious on its way : 

Thou of the measured step and pensive train, 
Whose calm delight is by the banks to stray, 
Of Ocean's inland waves and grave or gay, 

With various song the flight of time to speed, 
Muse called — or inspiration, or the ray 

Bestowed'of partial heaven — thou who canst read 

The origin of things and knows whence they 
lead, 

Muse, say how nature in the endless round 
Of transmutation that yet never knew 

Rest or cessation, loss or force uncrown'd 
With just result in Wisdom's equal view, 



ON THE WAVE. 45 

Transforms the waters of the ocean blue 
Into the viewless vapour, which again 

On earth's green hills she leaves in sparkling 
dew, 
Or on her mountain sides in copious rain 
Pours from the brooding cloud to fertilize the 
plain. 

Not with the magic power her clouds she builds, 

Or rears her vapours from the billowy sea ; 
Nor save with simple law of force distills 

The dewdrop and the bounteous rain sets free. 

But as in humbler toils of art we see 
Some aqueous mass by heat evolved in steam, 

Or in the denser vapour, thence to be 
Anew condensed, so, with the sun's bright beam. 
Her vapour and her clouds she builds from flood 
and stream. 

But tlje laboratory of her skill, 

Where chiefly she the art creative plies 

In all the wondrous workings of the will 

Supreme, lies broad beneath the torrid skies : 
Where much that once held part in Paradise, 



46 ON THE WAVE. 

In which our parents dwelt supremely blest, 

Elaborated still is seen to rise ; 
Imperfect, but in contrast with the rest 
Of earth's perverted growth, obnoxious, vice 
impressed. 

There the Simoon that blows on Indian seas, 
And the swift Trades that o'er the broad ex- 
panse 

Of the Atlantic in the northeast breeze, 
Or in the southeast near the line advance 
With steady impulse, and all winds of chance 

That flow to fill nature's vacuity. 

The fierce Typhoon whirled in destructive 
dance, 

And dread Sirocco from the burning sea 

Of Lybian sand that blows with hot asperity, 

These in their course beneath the torrid sun, 

Dispensing else insufferable day. 
The grateful moisture from the waters won. 

Absorb and to remotest climes convey ; 

Where nightly, as the tranquil skies display 
Their constellations with the evening shade, 

And Hesperus from the west her mellow ray, 



ON THE WAVE. 4/ 

In pleasing contrast through the night displayed, 
Sheds on the silent face of lake or flood em- 
bayed, 

The dewy shower, the silent tears of grief, 

For her sad fall, involved in man's lost race, 
In pearly drops then brings a sweet relief 
To nature, and restores her floral grace : 
Shook from the wings of the swift hours that 
chase 
Each other like the Fairies of a dream, 

They glow and sparkle on the night's still 
face 
In Dian's light, or in the starry beam, 
Brighter than Indian gems, famed of Golconda's 
stream. 

Though simply dewdrops shining thro' the night. 

Yet of such, Ocean, art thou mighty made — 
And each may be a world in all its light ; 

A world that hath its bright side and its 
shade : 

But the first beams of morning that invade 
The paths of night, shall end its fair career ; 

Its brightness and its glory all shall fade. 



48 ON THE V/AVE. 

Its sunlight and its gloom, yet to appear 
In some new form of light, some more exalted 
sphere. 

Lo ! where triumphant npw perhaps they adorn 

Yon silvery folds that drape the evening sky ; 
With ocean's mist uniting, which upborne 

By yon bright sunbeams to the sphere on 
high, 

Are in the clouds condensed that gently fly 
Along the heavens in endless forms of grace ; 

Like some bright veil or shadowy canopy, 
Suspended o'er the earth to screen its face 
From the too ardent beam of the sun's torrid 
rays. 

And for the bliss of man who walks the sphere 
With eye toward heaven uphTted to adorn, 

The sky in its bright hues ; throughout the 
year. 
In ever varying grace and splendor born. 
And truly were earth of its beauty shorn. 

Without its clouds, that on the summer's eve, 
Or with the pensive Autumn's rosy morn, 



ON THE WAVE. 49 

Upon their flowing skirts the light receive, 
In all the lovely tints which nature knows to 
weave. 

She to each season gives its thange of skies, 

To render earth the fit abode of man : 
Spring paints her scattered clouds in rainbow 
dies, 
And the green hills with Hope's bright bow 

doth span : 
The Summer, these dispersing with her fan 
Inwrought of sunbeams, on the peaceful sky. 

Weaves but the lightest tints in nature's plan, 
Save when the nimbus, lightning charged, on 

high. 
Its thundering volumes piles, in awful majesty. 

Yet loveliest. Autumn, are thy skies of all ; 

For nature then imparts a graver light, 
Unto the clouds whose fleeting shadows fall, 

In pensive contrast with the sunbeams bright. 

O'er hill and dale in ever restless flight, 
Wand'ring away — now vanishing from view, 

Now reappearing like some airy sprite — 
4 



50 ON THE WAVE. 

Now with a darker, now a fainter hue, 
Shading the face of earth or bright'ning it anew. 

Till Winter, stern descending from the pole, 
Leads forth his storm-embattled clouds that 
slow 
Upon the northern sky majestic roll. 

Like mountains rising in their shrouds of 

snow. 
Thus nature from the ocean wave below, 
Builds her fair clouds, that on the wind's swift 
wing, 
From clime to distant clime sublimely flow : 
Whence through the various year, as seasons 

bring. 
Seedtime and harvest rise, and all earth's boun- 
ties spring. 

When through the summer solstice rolls the sun 

In all the effulgence of the burning zone, 
And streams late murmuring cease at length 
to run, 
And parched and sere the hills around have 
grown, 



ON THE WAVE. 5 1 

While ruin threatens then his fields unmown, 
And the yet unripe harvest of the grain, 

Thus far with care advanced and toilsome 
sown, 
With what anxiety his suffering plain 
The husbandman surveys ; how gladly hails the 
rain ? 

Nor with less joy mute nature notes the event 

Of the mild tempest, warned by instinct power; 
Or moist or cool that heralds its descent, 

Ere yet the rain commence or clouds yet lower. 

Swift fly the birds to covert as the shower 
Is heard still distant falling on some grove. 

Or on the umbrageous mountain's tangled 
bower: 
There mute till past, again they praise in love 
The Giver of all life, all blessings from above. 

Nor thankful less the herds and fleecy flocks. 
Panting erewhile beneath the grateful shade 

Of hedge or grove, or where, amid gray rocks. 
Some stream meanders shallow thro' the glade, 



52 ON THE WAVE. 

Immersed of foot and ruminant displayed — • 
Now wander forth upon the hills again, 

In kind deliverance from each winged invade^ 
To crop the tender herbage of the plain, 
And on their soiled robes receive the pelting rain. 

Where the high Alps or loftier Andes soar 
Heavenward — supreme of earthly grandeur 
raised, 

Crowned with eternal snows that evermore 
Successive ages see anew replaced 
In the just balance of their annual waste, 

There Ocean mounts triumphant in the cloud, 
High o'er exalted earth sublimely traced ; 

Or pouring round the hills in vapoury shroud, 

Hurls the electric bolt and rolls the thunders 
loud, 

*Tis the sea's olden play-ground where erewhile 
The billows wandering in primeval time. 

O'er hill and plain, through valley and defile, 
Wrote on the rocks deep merged and hills 

sublime, 
To mournful cadence, or to solemn chime. 



ON THE WAVE. 53 

The legend of their birth and of the age 

Long lasping ere Earth reached her natal 
prime, 
When nature, turning o'er her finished page, 
Emerged her continents in their perfected stage : 

Earth newborn with her hills — around whose 
sides 

The cloud, attracted as by olden ties 
Of once familiar places, gently glides ; 

Or in the silence of the calm now lies 

In solitary grandeur that defies 
The skill of pen or pencil to portray : 

Now mounting o'er the hills' successive rise, 
Wanders with everchanging form away ; 
Or like some white-winged bird^ soars to the eye 
of day. 

Or massing into ranks on ranks up-piled, 
And through unending convolutions rolled, 

Rain-charged and threatening, windy, dark, and 
wild, 
Now by the hills half hid, now issuing bold 
From every mountain gorge with manifold 



54 ON THE WAVE. 

Enlargement of its gloom and gathering nighty 
And fiery tongues that curdle the blood cold, 
By turns inspiring awe, fear, and deb'ght, 
Such from the hills descends the nimbus in its 
might. 

Then on some vale converging from all sides, 
As to a common field of contest borne, 

Cloud piles on cloud, on tempest tempest rides. 
Lightning to lightning leaps adversely drawn, 
And thunder back to thunder rolls its scorn; 

Till Echo, deemed erewhile of gentlest voice. 
Whispering the early matins to the morn. 

Disturbed, now all her vocal might employs. 

And from her hundred hills hurls back the deaf- 
ening noise. 

Such scenes and sounds, first witnessed here on 
earth. 
Struck consternation to the rebellious hearts 
Of Titans glorying in gigantic birth. 

And heaven attempting with presumptuous 

arts. 
Such yet erewhile on high, the envious darts 



ON THE WAVE. 55 

O'ercame of those misguided by the thrall 
Of him who since in fallen glory smarts : 
Whom Lucifer in heaven, on earth, they call 
Satan, of rebels first, and mightiest in his fall. 

Tempestuous thus, the peasant of the vale 

Sees the descending clouds not without fear; 
For oft the nimbus hurls destructive hail, 

On the spent labours of the toilsome year; 

Or with concentric force, pours down severe 
On all the adjoining hills, till every stream 

Rolls headlong, furrowing in its mad career 
The ancestral field with many an unsightly 

seam : 
Destroying in one night, mayhap, his life-long 
dream. 

But not for single nature shapes her rule ; 

But for the many equal in her eye : 
And that perhaps which ruins one poor fool, 

Enriches thousands born alike to die. 

Fortune we may upbraid, but not deny, 
How hard soe'er, the justness of our fate : 

Blest rather if He, who orders thus our sky. 



56 ON THE WAVE. 

From one man's ruin builds the happier state, 
Than born to fortune's smile, if vainly, vainlier 
great. 

He who has witnessed not the tropic storm 
Thus raging 'mid the mountains, has not 
known 
The glory of the clouds in all its form 
Of wild sublimity there seen alone. 
From the high hills, as from earth's loftiest 
throne. 
To look down on the embattled storm below, 

Mustering from vale to vale to the deep tone 
Of muttering thunders and the dazzling glow 
Of the winged lightning sped in instantaneous 
flow, 

This is to view sublimity and feel, 

That life hath still to win a broader zone, 
Than through the shadowed vale unseen to steal ; 

Unseeing and unknowing and unknown. 

Yet thus to see and feel, is but to own 
The insignificance of human thought 

With nature's God who walks the hills alone 



ON THE WAVE. 57 

In majesty, which, if the eye may have caught, 
Man to describe to man, hath ever vainly sought. 

Mine hath it been to feel, while wandering lone 
Upon the palm-clothed hills of a far land. 

Remote from man and saddened by the tone 
Of nature's cadence, varying from the bland. 
Low voice of winds and streams to the more 
grand, 

The roar of floods descending to the plain. 
Then falling, fainting on some far-off strand. 

Where ocean's wandering billows in the chain 

Of nature's harmony, beat the undying refrain. 

Mine it has been to feel, that earth hath still 

Some remnant of the glory of that time. 
When man, submissive to the Higher will. 

Knew not the form or penalty of crime. 

And if I deemed I saw of the sublime 
More than to common lot of mortals lies. 

More than the ambition that inspires to climb, 
Urged on the fitful light of Fancy's eyes, 
Time, only thou canst tell, if vainly or if wise. 



58 ON THE WAVE. 



CANTO FOURTH. 



Dawn now awakening from the orient sky, 

With locks disheveled on the verge doth stand, 
And looks upon the world with troubled eye, 

And waves the seaman's warning from her 
hand : 

Her flowing robe girt with the rubric band, 
The mariner marks — nor often notes in vain : 

Sad omen of the future, ere the sand 
Of Time's inverted glass is on the wane, 
The dreaded storm may wake in wrath the 
slumbering main. 



■fc> 



Lo ! yonder petrel hovering o'er the deep, 
The storm precursor, dwells upon our path ; 

Yet clear the skies are, and the winds they sleep, 
And Ocean seems Incapable of wrath. 

Hast thou foreseen the tempest, has its breath 
Ruffled thy wing and sent thee on before 

To warn of warring winds laden with death 
To some, or dire distress and travail sore, 
And shipwreck on some lone, inhospitable 
shore 7 



ON THE WAVE. 59 

Or dost thou follow in the track of man, 

Dependent, conscious of thy feeble dower ; 
Thy wing, unequal to the battling van 

Of the fierce tempest and the midnight shower? 

Or fearest thou the dark and lonely hour 
Of nature's travail, and by instinct led, 

Fly to the shelter of man's present power 
For reassurance, and with timorous dread 
Seek of his bounteous hand, unconscious to be 
fed? 

Lone wanderer of the deep, in solitude 

Of the wide waters wast thou early bred, 
And taught to gather from the flood thy food, 

And on the wandering billow make thy bed ; 

Hast thou no home whither, when day has fled, 
To fly for refuge from the darksome hour ? 

No shelter to protect thy weary head 
From winds tempestuous and the beating shower 
That baffle thy swift wing and weary of its power ? 

Thy lot, is it not mine ? has not the past 

Been borne on troubled waters, and the way 
We see not, can it be aught but the recast 



6o ON THE WAVE. 

Of what preceded ? hath hope still a ray 
Brighter than that which shone but to decay ? 
Is it not ours to wander on the wave 

Of ever baffling fortune, till the day 
Draws to its close and time has bowed its slave, 
Our home, life's restless deep, our dearest bourn 
the grave ? 

But thou dost dance upon the stormy billow. 

As though it were thy cradle and thy home : 
And dost thou not rest gently on the pillow 
Which Ocean spreads thee, wreathed about 

with foam. 
Reckless alike of time past or to come ? 
So that the present joyful speed away. 

What carest thou whither on the deep thou 
roam. 
Or in what clime thy wing dip the salt spray, 
Or if the night of storm succeed the peaceful 
day ! 

So that thy wing outstrip the tempest's wrath. 
What reckest thou — the deep, is it not wide ? 
And knowest not thou the compass of its path, 



ON THE WAVE. 6l 

And canst avoid with instinct for thy guide ? 

Not thus with man — while on the uncertain 
tide, 
Discretion is the mariner's better part : 

Whatever fortune bring is his to abide ; 
Or wind or calm, and with the seaman's art 
To battle with the storm, to sink or gain his mart. 

And nature's omens shown on cloud or sea, 

Fall not unheeded on his wary eye : 
Experienced to discern of storms to be, 

When calmest is the deep, fairest the sky. 

Lo ! make they not now ready to defy 
Some change of weather for the worse to come ; 

And stay and standing shroud and brace and 
guy, 
Restrengthen and the yards are sheeted home : 
And yet not e'en a breath upon the deep doth 
roam. 

Nature, art thou so fickle that not man 

May trust thy tem.per — least when in thy sleep 

All peacefully thou dost heaven o'er us span, 
And silence rests upon the mighty deep ? 



62 ON THE WAVE. 

Thou, Ocean, can it be, that thou shalt sweep 
Our decks, it may be ere the sun hath set ? 

So soon thy depths from peace to anger leap, 
And on thy distant shores thy billows fret 
Till nature hath grown tired, and man hath paid 
her debt ? 

Calm be thy slumbers still, thou mighty deep ; 

Well canst thou hide the passions of thy breast : 
Calm as the young maid's bosom when in sleep, 
None but the pleasing dream disturbs its rest. 
Not e'en the omens of the morn invest 
Thy presence to the seaman's thought with 
dread. 
The storm may brood o'er thy expanse, but 
blest 
With broad good nature and by hope still led. 
The hour of wrath descends, with half its terrors 
fled. 

Oh, could thy restless waves relate the story 
Of their long wandering o'er the pathless 
sphere. 
What would they not tell of the ancient glory 



ON THE WAVE. 63 

Of earth and of more recent man's career I 
Have they not washed the shores of ages here 

Since the Almighty from thy still abyss 

First bade the coasts of hoary time to appear? 

Are they not witness of the world that is? 

Have not thy billows swept o'er other worlds 
than this? 

Hast thou not smoothed thy temper at the feet 
Of Greek and Roman, and in earlier day, 

Of they to whom came the rich laden fleet 
Of Ophire old, of Tarsus and Cathay, 
Till thou wert deemed subjected to their 
sway — 

And didst thou not there in thy might arise, 
As now, and turn their boasting to dismay ; 

And on thy billows lifting to the skies. 

Dash them upon the rocks, deaf to their feeble 
cries ? 

Thou art the same flood still as wast thou then, 
When on the deep the Spirit of God dwelt 
lone ; 
Or yet thy wandering billows in the refrain 



64 ON THE WAVE. 

Of nature joined with ever restless moan. 
And isle and continent have silent grown 
From thy dark depths ; yet still dost thou not 
change. 
And State and empire hast thou seen o'er 
thrown, 
And where proud cities rose, the leopard range. 
And where the desert dwelt, the hospitable 
grange. 

And metamorphosed in the cloud dost thou 
O'erarch the mountains, and with hope's bright 
bow 

Remindest man of the Almighty's vow. 
Which in the early days He bade us know, 
That nevermore shouldst thou the land o'er- 
flow, 

As was of eld, destructive to our race : 
But in the gentle shower, on earth below, 

Descend to add new glory to the face 

Of nature, thenceforth kind, unto the end of days. 

And lovely hast thou formicd earth with thy 
streams ; 



ON THE WAVE. 65 

And many a realm, else barren, fertile made. 
There is no land so beautiful in dreams. 

But nature somewhere working with thy aid, 

Hath in reality as fair displayed. 
Oh Muse ! what hinders, that thou speed the time 

Of nature's calm, where Ocean bright arrayed, 
Wanders in stream and flood from clime to clime, 
Whence Fancy beckons us from fragrant banks 
of thyme. 

Prompt to her call, where earth's enduring hills 

Majestic rise, fain would I guide the flight 
Of still untiring thought ; thence while distills 

The cloud upon some mountain's neighbour- 
ing hight. 

And mingles its dark shadows with the light 
In the green dales below, enraptured trace 

The gathering waters wandering onward bright, 
Through many a vale and plain in endless maze, 
To beautify the earth and join the sea's embrace. 

Fair flow thy waters, Ocean, when thus filled 
From the discharging clouds, thy bright 
streams wend 

5 



66 ON THE WAVE. 

The wooded steeps of the high hills, self-willed 
And joyous hastening onward to their end. 
Or when from precipice headlong they descend 

Into the abyss deep worn in rocks below 
By time's corroding wave ; there to expend 

Their force, while Iris spans her lovely bow 

Upon the dim gray mists that from the depth 
upflow. 

Then like thy voice upon thy distant shores, 
Unto the plain remote descends the sound 

Of many waters, murmuring in their course. 
And whitening o'er the rocks with rapid bound : 
Torrent with torrent joining in the round 

Of the steep hills, till through the vale below, 
The mingled floods o'er the less rugged ground, 

Pursue their way with less tumultuous flow : 

Now wandering white through rocks, now darkly 
calm and slow — 

By hills and lesser hills, the recent born 

Of the enduring mountains, on whose sides 

Perchance the shepherds feed their flocks at morn, 
And when the cool of evening hour betides : 



ON THE WAVE. 6/ 

Or whence, as with effulgence the sun rides 
The midday course, to the wood-bordered stream 

That through the pleasant vale meandering 
glides, 
Conduct them following from the ardent beam, 
To while the hour away as idless may beseem. 

And where the deepening tide flows dark and still. 
To enjoy the bath screened by some friendly 
shade : 
Or innocent of guilt and thought of ill, 
Less studious to be hid, not they evade 
To breast the torrent with the sportive maid 
In nature's plain attire, as ere their pain 

Used They in Eden's blissful glade, 
And custom still doth license through New 

Spain, 
Where simple virtue views, unblushing, nature's 
reign. 

So pass their hours — or on some bank retired 
Beneath the shade of oak or waving palm, 

They teach the rustic pipes the air inspired 
To breathe in harmony with nature's calm. 



6S ON THE WAVE. 

Simple, but best befitting so the psalm 
Of those of old led by the starry ray : 

Thus till the evening zephyrs breathing balm 
Or voice of herds to hills wand'ring away, 
Recall them to their folds, impatient of their stay. 

So flowed the streams Arcadian o'er their rocks, 

By hill and dale, and to the mellow sound 
Of lowing herds and voice of bleating flocks. 

And pastoral strains of shepherds resting 
round. 

So of late time the Guadalquiver wound ; 
Not to the Thespian reed or Doric flute, 

Nor with the hymn of Eastern shepherds 
crown'd. 
But to the light guitar and Paphian lute, 
As best befit the Andalusian's gay pursuit. 

See, how thro' vale meandering the stream. 
Joined with a sister stream, majestic flows 

To swell the river's course ; no more to dream 
Of rock or bank whereon the violet blows. 
Nor of the pastoral strain, nor hill whence lows 

The sober herd, but of the boundless sea 



ON THE WAVE. * 69 

Of the dim future whitherto it goes : 
To nobler purpose drawn, broad, deep and free 
As life's majestic flood rolls to eternity. 

For pastoral scenes and frolic youth behold 
Exchanged the vale, wide sloping to each side, 

In pleasant fields on fields receding rolled ; 
Pregnant with large fertility, and wide 
With varied husbandry diversified. 

Clothed with the promise of the blooming year. 
Now fruitful groves conspicuous preside : 

Now interspersed green fields of grain appear, 

And alternating woods and pastures fill the rear. 

Where fields late fallow to the W^inter*s storm, 
Reclaim the husbandman's laborious care. 

There with his steeds, ambitious to perform 
And earn, with meted task, their simple fare. 
Or patient oxen toiling with the air 

Of those whom fate to labour hath resigned, 
The industrious swain now with the shining 
share, 

Inverts the soil, by frost and sun combined. 

Made mellower to receive the germs of crops 
assigned. 



70 ON THE WAVE. 

Or hardiest rye, or wheat first sown of Spring, 
While Winter yet flies on the evening blast. 
Their toil the later oats and barley bring, 

With liberal faith sown to the field broad- 
cast : 
The bounteous maze, gift of the savage, last 
Claims the attention of the toiling swain. 

Some turn the furrow, some with labour vast, 
The obstructing rock remove, while some the 

plain 
With the toothed harrow smooth or sow the 
pregnant grain. 

Then with the seedtime ended, and his toil 
Remitting for a season, moves the breast 

Of the proud owner of the fruitful soil 

With greatly enlarged faith, that in true rest 
Waits all things of Heaven's bounty for the 
best : 

Not with due observation of each sign 

Of times and seasons counting toil as blest 

Nor the sown field to nature doth resign, 

Till Heaven hath been invoked propitious to 
incline. 



ON THE WAVE. J I 

Rightly besought, Heaven hears the simple 
prayers 
Of humblest swains, and on the new-sown 
plain, 
To crown with just reward their provident cares, 
From partial clouds remits the gentle rain 
To regenerate anew the buried grain : 
Sunlight and shower commingling in due share ; 

This to impregnate, that the life sustain ; 
Then to crown all the sower's patient care, 
Spans the bright bow of Hope upon the eastern 
air. 

Where more advanced the season with the beam 
Of the maturing sun roU'd at its hight. 

Crowns the fair banks of the enlarging stream, 
With ripening harvests waving in the light, 
Like some bright water slumbering in its 
might. 

How nobly flows the river through the plain, 
Burdened beyond the eyes' enraptured sight, 

With bounteous return of golden grain, 

The joy and honest pride of the industrious 
swain. 



72 ON THE WAVE. 

There sturdy peasants through the waving fields, 

Fell the ripe harvest ranged in lengthen'd row : 
One hand the sheaf collects, the other wields 

The crooked sickle sped with skillful blow ; 

Each step and movement timing as they go, 
To the sweet cadence of the reapers' song: 

Now scarcely heard so far off and so low ; 
Now on the summer winds arising strong, 
From many a grateful heart harmonious borne 
along. 

In other fields see other workmen joined, 
Who to the cradle the curved scythe unite ; 

Then in succession with the form inclined. 
And the left step advancing from the right, 
With well-timed blow and double-handed 
might, 

Strike down the full-eared harvest to the plain : 
Each as he swings his blade with dexterous 
sleight 

Of practiced hands, the gently falling grain, 

Depositing behind in one continuous train. 

To them the rakers next succeeding near. 
In equal piles the smooth-laid swaths collect 



ON THE WAVE. 73 

For the swift binders following in their rear, 
Who from the heaps with liberal hand select 
The golden band, and with swift turn connect 
The bristling heads, in equal lot disjoined ; 

Then bending to the posture less erect, 
Tie round the gathered sheaf, which thus con- 
fined. 
Is left unto the care of those who come be- 
hind. 

They, youngest of the farmer's numerous flock. 
Convey the rustling sheaves with tugging 
hand 
To some place central to the reckoned shock, 
And round their sire in harvest wreath up- 

stand ; 
Who, thus thrice crowned, smiles proudly on 
his band 
Of youthful w^orkmen sporting through the plain : 

Or if reproving, with mild reprimand 
Checks the too rude, the while he weaves the 

grain 
Into the sloping stack to shield from dew or rain. 



74 ON THE WAVE. 

Thus moves the toil through the long summer's 
day; 
Arduous, yet willingly and cheerful borne : 
Nor wants there sport or pastime to make gay 
The busy season and the scene adorn : 
But while the sun shines fair, from early 
morn 
Till evening gathers in the hazy west, 

Save when called to repast by noonday horn, 
The harvest year admits of but short rest. 
Till night to their relief comes with its slumbers 
blest. 

Warmed with their employer's interest, each his 
part 
With cheerful speech performs and willing 
hand : 
Some fell the grain, long practiced in the art 
With easy grace the cradle to command : 
Some rake in heaps, some skillful twist the 
band ; 
The youngest, least experienced, bears the 
sheaves 
To him who teaches the tall stack to stand : 



ON THE WAVE. 75 

Others with forks upload the wain, this heaves 
The weighty bundles — this on the groaning wain 
receives. 



To them of olr" succeeded other band, 

Gleaners of the past harvests scant remains : 
The widow and the orphans of the land, 

Whom kind remembering charity maintains. 

They unreproved, gleaned from the stubble 
plains 
What fell by accident from the binders' hand, 

Or what was added to their slender gains, 
By the kind owner's generous command, 
To gather not too close the harvest of his land. 

So, Ocean, flowed thy streams in olden time, 

Through spacious plains made fertile by their 
flow. 
To the sweet cadence of the reaper's hymn, 

And many a rural task and pleasing show ; 

Now but recalled as scenes of long ago ; 
Or witnessed only on remotest shore. 

Soon will the reaper's hymn forget to flow. 



"J^ ON THE WAVE. 

And the familiar sound that pleased of yore, 
The mower whetting his scythe be heard to 
ring no more. 

Yet on thy banks, Ohio, and on thine, 

Fair Susquehanna, and many a noble stream 

Too numerous for the Muse, to the grave line 
And measured step prescribed as best beseem. 
When Autumn sheds around her mellow beam, 

Columbia's sons, they of the nobly free. 

Thrice blessed of Heaven, fulfillment of the 
dream. 

Once lost, once realized of Liberty, 

Reap still the annual crown of honored industry : 

In the maze harvest, yellowing in the sun 

Of mild October's calm and peaceful days; 
Through spacious fields erst from the savage won 

By pious valour of the Pilgrim race ; 

From Briton once, once nobly from disgrace. 
Now honoured Peace converts war's panoply 

Into the humbler share that tills the maze; 
And 'tis a sight, Fair Ceres, worthy thee, 
This last and noblest gift of thine to Liberty. 



ON TJIE WAVE. • yj 

Where now breme Winter through the northern 
sky, 
Of Eastern dimes, lands verging to the sun, 
Surveys the bounteous year with envious eye. 
And sears the woodlands and the fields turns 

dun, 
See, Muse, how floods from smallest streams 
begun. 
In earth's remotest regions wandering lone. 
There burdened with the wealth of nations 
run ; 
Majestic winding on from zone to zone, 
Through lands obscure to fame and empire yet 
unknown. 

There China's hoarded people ply the arts 
Industrious, with persevering zeal 

And close economy of frugal hearts. 
Subservient to the necessitous appeal 
Of myriads bowed to fortune's crushing wheel : 

To whom returning still with fresh recoil, 
The problem of supply and future weal. 

Compels to reap from every rood of soil 

More bounteous return with still enlarged toil. 



78 ON THE WAVE. 

Mark how kind nature with the sun's ripe glow 

Upon her cheek, builds there her fruitful 
reign 
On many a flood's enriching overflow, 

And art formed irrigation of the plain ; 

Whose generous tides fair tribute claim again 
Of surplus wealth embarked upon their breast : 

Theirs to bestow on some less kind domain, 
Or speed upon its way to climes more blest, 
Lands from which fame returns but vague re- 
port at best. 

Where the broad Croceus rolls its safron waves. 

Or where Chiam with more majestic tide, 
Its banks crowned with an hundred cities laves. 
Thronged with skilled industry on every side ; 
Or Tay, whose less ennobled waters glide 
By Babylonish Canton's noisy door, 

See Commerce spread her white wings far and 
wide ; 
On stream and confluent stream her precious 

store, 
Discharging from far lands or lading by their 
shore. 



ON THE WAVE. 79 

From every province, every distant clime, 

Ships of all ancient and all modern make, 
From junks that plowed the stream of early 
time, 
To the swift clipper graceful in her rake 
As the wild swan that cleaves the woodland 
lake ; 
Or giant steamer from the Antipode, 

Breasting the tempest in her foaming wake, 
There throng the face of nature's watery road. 
And many a spacious stream by ancient art 
bestowed. 

For Art with the united strength erewhile 
Of countless hosts such as of old were 
joined. 

To build the less useful pyramids by Nile, 
Stupendous toil, with nature there combined, 
Strives to enlarge the blessings to mankind 

Of commerce and on lands remote bestow, 
Through spacious channels skillfully designed, 

Which swarming with their populations flow, 

In numbers scarcely less than lands adjacent 
show. 



8o ON THE WAVE. 

Amid less busy scenes, the Indian flood, 

Ganges, crowned with barbaric pomp, see 
glide ; 
Ganges, whose hundred mouths, long red with 
blood. 
Engulf in Spring the Ocean's mounting tide, 
And inland hurl the Bore with giant stride. 
Thence tht proud 'Qritons reap their wealth, nor 
deem 
The age removed from prudent forethought 
wide, 
When threatening powers and want of room 

would seem 
To drive to fix their throne by India's famous 
stream. 

More glorious Nile ! thou of the olden story — 

Nile, sacred to Tsis and to lasting fame, 
The sad, but silent witness of the glory 

Of Egypt's past, and of her present shame ; 

Nile, thou dost still pour forth thy wealth the 
same 
As when the Pharaohs dwelt beside thy wave, 

And the mysterious Ibis' dying flame 



ON THE WAVE. 8 1 

Sprang yearly from the ashes of its grave, 
And hundred gated Thebes rose o'er the abject 
slave. 

*Mid desert scenes to which the foot erewhile 

Of savage only hath explored its course, 
There Isis and Serapis, gods of Nile, 

Guard the mysterious fountain of its source ; 

Till some adventurer from distant shores, 
Shall come with sacrilegious zeal to invade 

The sacred precincts of its ancient force. 
And the last worship of the stream shall fade, 
With mysteries of eld, in. time's oblivious shade. 

Thus roll the waters of the Orient clime, 

Crowned with the glorious halo memory 
throws 
Around the sacred rivers of old time, 
Till veneration into worship grows: 
So not less great, though less revered than 
those, 
Through spacious plains blest by fair Freedom's 
hands. 
The Mississippi, Father of Waters, flows : 
6 



82 ON THE WAVE. 

So the great Amazonian flood expands ; 
Monarch of inland seas and builder of new lands. 

The sea — all hail again the boundless sea — 

Ye hills of earth, hark to its sounding voice — ■ 
Ye waves of time born to eternity, 

Ye long lost streams, ye wandering floods, re- 
joice. 
Wander no more, ye waves, with babbling noise 
Of idle mirth, on mountain side or plain ; 

Wander no more, thou flood, where earth 
alloys 
Thy purer purpose with its lust of gain, 
And vice from temporal bliss reaps but unend- 
ing pain. 

Ocean, thy kindred streams, long lost, receive 

Triumphant to thy embrace ; upon thy shore, 
Let all thy wandering billow^s rising heave 

The solemn cadence of their ceaseless roar. 

Thine are the clouds, the vapours thine that 
soar 
Upon the wings of evening's gentle breeze : 

Thine are the dewy shower, the rains that pour 



ON THE WAVE. 83 

Fertility on earth and ripe increase : 
Thine all its streams and floods, its lakes and 
inland seas. 



CANTO FIFTH. 



What sound is that which o'er the slumbering 
deep, 
Comes low and mournful to the startled ear ? 
As when the traveller wakened from his sleep, 
Hears the low, muffled hum of midnight prayer 
From some Mohammedan town : by fits the air 
Breathes in a sudden gust, then dies away. 
The unconscious sea now wrinkles here, now 
there ; 
The sportive tribes of Ocean cease their play. 
And seek the gloomy depths, beyond the reach 
of day. 

What sudden light gleams in the uplifted eye 
Of the stayed mariner, flashed forth from the 
soul ! 



84 ON THE WAVE. 

As gravely pausing he surveys the sky 
From the horizon upward to its pole — 
Then rests upon the sea's uncertain roll, 

Doubtful, as if some warning to beware 
Recalled him sudden from relaxed control, 

While the uneasy hand of watchful care 

Draws deeper on his brow the lines time furrows 
there. 

Low down the western verge the sun descends, 
All bathed in clouds of every glorious hue : 

There gold with safron, red with purple blends, 
And richest amber fades in softest blue : 
Each moment changing, varying ever new. 

As only nature knows her shades to change: 
As only she, to please the unwearied view. 

Can alter outline still through all the range 

Of the sublime, the wild, the beautiful, the 
strange. 

How lovely is the sunset on the deep. 

When nature thus her skill divine displays ! 
When winds are hushed and waves are stilled in 
sleep, 



ON THE WAVE. 8$ 

And evening's balmy softness takes the place 
Of the dim ardour of the noonday rays! 

What artist's brush coiild imitate those hues? 
What pencil draw those outlines with such 
grace ; 

Or poet's fancy, aided by the Muse, 

Such splendor to describe, could language find to 



How often have I sat as day retired, 

And watched the sunset glory from my home ! 

Saw in the clouds as Fancy's light inspired. 
The outlines vague of castles go and come, 
With tower and glittering spire and rising 
dome 

In prospect fair, or caught the wild desire 
From mystic mountains in the sky, to roam 

In lands remote, where nature's hills aspire 

With all the impress grand, sublime of heaven's 
wrapt fire. 

Lone by the silent shore I see the form 

Of one who still at sunset watches there : 
Youth's rosy hue upon her cheek glows warm ; 



S6 ON THE WAVE. 

The golden sunlight wanders through her hair : 
Thought, on her brow has stamped its im- 
press fair ; 
The lustrous tears of silent grief adorn 

Her eyes yet lovelier for their dewy care : 
Less fair Aurora through the east is borne, 
Bright in the sparkling tears of mildly vveep- 



The sun has set, the lingering light declines ; 

The golden clouds and twilight gloom have 
fled. 
Day to the embrace of night the world resigns : 

Triumphal night ! in stellar glory led, 

With all her planets circling round her head. 
Oh thou who dwellest in exalted might, 

Beyond the beams those distant bodies shed, 
Why thus to earth abridge the spirit's flight, 
And all beyond it leave in impenetrable night ? 

Oh, that we might ascend from star to star ; 

From earth debased to heaven's exalted pole : 
Thus to contemplate all things as they are. 

And learn the wisdom of each part and whole, 



ON THE WAVE. 87 

Wherever life exists or systems roll. 
Alas! in vain on Heaven itself we call, 

Dust to endow with attributes of soul : 
Less vain to ask why man was formed at all, 
Or why created pure, through vice at last to fall. 

It is enough to know that here on earth, 

All things are suited to their day and sphere. 

As time rolls on and sciences take birth, 
What once was mystery may then be clear, 
And worlds unknown grow to the vision near. 

But time is all too short to teach the whole, 
And Heaven willed not, that all things should 
appear : 

Still in mysterious cycle life must roll. 

Incentive to all aim, the inherent law of soul. 

To more immediate welfare of mankind. 

The mind owes its reflections ; chief the arts 

Of happiness, indissolubly joined 

With the magnanimous of human hearts. 
How vast man's work, how various are the 
parts 

By Heaven assigned us to fulfill below ! 



88 ON THE WAVE. 

How fair we promise when our journey starts 
On the bright stream of Hfe, whose silent flow 
Misleads to fatal trust through its deceptive 
show ! 

Alas ! how few their parts in life perform, 

When on the swelling flood advanced they 
meet 

The rush of waters, the descending storm. 
The wreck of kindred and the stern retreat 
Of thousands more advanced ; in their defeat 

O'erwhelming other thousands in their rear; 
And last, to render hopelessness complete, 

When dangers thicken, when new toils appear, 

The turning back of those whom friendship held 
most dear. 

Too much we hope, too much we base our joy 
Upon the friendship of the outer world : 

Too often led by Pleasure's false decoy, 

Are on destruction with the breakers hurled, 
Or through unending eddies vainly whirled. 

Too oft ambition and the love of fame 

Urge to advance when canvas should be furled, 



ON THE WAVE. 89 

Till lost in reckoning, cheated in our aim, 
Gladly we would return by the same path we 
came. 

For every rational pleasure we enjoy, 

How many in the attempt we dissipate ! 
Each scene of nature charmed us when a boy, 

And all was then mysterious and great. 

How changed the scene appears at man's 
estate ! 
Tossed on the sea of mingled joy and pain, 

The mind confounds the impressions of its 
fate, 
Till life itself grows an unsightly stain 
Amid less perfect works of nature's fair domain. 

How fair, how perfect in each part, could man 
But pierce the veil of sin that dims his sight ! 

Though nature vary from her primitive plan. 
From endless chaos lead forth order bright, 
And call the day from universal night, 

Or all her glorious work annihilate. 

She changes not to improve that which is 
right, 



90 ON THE WAVE. 

Nor in reversion of the law of fate, 

But with adaptive art to balance every state. 

And every state with man ; man, the last act 

Of Heaven's creative will : instinct with light, 
With immortality of soul, with tact 

Of reasoning to discern the wrong from right ; 

Lord of creation by prescriptive might, 
The free-will agent, judge of all that is — 

Formed in Heaven's likeness, called good in 
its sight. 
What higher call to virtue could be his? 
Than man's, what prior claim to an unending 
bliss? 

That call, how little heeded ! and the bliss 

Of earth, what is it ! who can tell where found ? 
Who the more fortunate that do not miss. 

Amid the universal failure crowned ? 

The few who keep within the narrow bound 
Of Wisdom's path, yet through life's quiet way, 

Fail not to shed upon the world around. 
The attractive warmth of love's benignant ray. 
That brightens all in hope and turns our night 
to day. 



ON THE WAVE. 9I 

Oh, whither wouldst thou have us, Muse, repair, 
To find that bHss enjoyed erewhile of none? 

To what fair cUme, land of congenial air. 

What shore unknown yet of the glorious sun, 
Where life's unsullied currents smoothly run 

Down the decline of nature to their sea ? 

To the calm end of age that comes when won, 

Not with the pangs of weak humanity. 

Nor where death hath its sting and sin its 
victory. 

Vain shalt thou seek, alas ! on earth to find 
That land of unalloyed happiness. 

Go, search the annals of thy fellow kind, 
And find no age of all the past possess 
More of true bliss or greater cause to bless : 

No land than thine more favoured of the past ; 
No race of heaven ; then willingly confess, 

The only fount of happiness at last, 

Is with thy lot to dwell content wherever cast. 

Some bond we find of union with the soil 

In every clime and land beneath the sun ; 
However humble be our lot, our toil, 



92 ON THE WAVE. 

However vast it be and arduous done. 

Our native hills, our fields paternal won 
From nature's grasp with unremitting pains, 

The offspring of our shelter in whom run 
The kindred currents of our manlier veins. 
These form the links whence love doth forge 
our blissful chains. 

True bliss belongs to no peculiar state ; 

Heaven with an equal hand bestows on all : 
Alike the poor, the rich, the unknown, the 
great ; 
All climes, all countries, be they vast or small. 
But what Heaven willed in bliss, man in his 
fall 
From the fair walks of blameless Paradise, 
Has found unequal to the enlarging call. 
The importuning, all-engrossing cries 
Of second nature's wants ; the child new-born 
of vice. 

Man is the author of his own deserts. 

Heaven the rewarder of his better deeds. 
In just proportion as his will subverts 



ON THE WAVE. 93 

The equal law of nature's simple needs, 
So far the bounds of reason he exceeds. 
Thus, Adam, Eve, first knew in Paradise, 

When for the tree of life they sowed the seeds 
Of death, and saw but thorns and brambles rise, 
Retributive in pain, the just reward of vice. 

Ye balmy airs that from the tempering stream 

Catch the soft influence of a milder clime. 
And steal the soul away in that sweet dream 

Of Eden's bliss, which down through shadowy 
time 

Comes ever wafted on, like the faint chime 
Of distant Sabbath bells at summer eve. 

Heard floating over hill and vale sublime 
To call the elect of Heaven to retrieve 
The erring past, and the lost boon of life receive, 

To some spot formed on Eden's blissful plan, 
Such if there be, waft us, ye tempests fair. 

Where few and simple are the wants of man. 
And bounteous seasons banish anxious care. 
Some land whose still Arcadian scenes prepare 

The soul to contemplation, and refined, 



94 ON THE WAVE. 

wife draws its simple bliss from nature there, 
Unmingled with the follies of mankind, 
The erring wisdom born of the world-wisely blind. 

The eve has past, night rolls majestic on ; 

And Cynthia, pausing in her bright career. 
Bends from the western sky to gaze upon 

Her crescent form that silentlydraws near 

To meet her on the verge of the still mere. 
Nor mist rests on the sea, nor cloud the while 

Dims the fair lustre of the starlit sphere. 
Bright arching o'er us, save yon shadowy pile, 
That on the austral bound uplooms like some 
dim isle. 

How solemn rests the night upon the deep ! 

Silent and ominous of brewing storms. 
The rage of tempests gathering in its sleep. 

Waits but the signal to assume its forms 

Of concentrated fury : e'en while warms 
The imagination with the quiet scene. 

And felt security our soul disarms, 
Nature but sleeps to rouse with altered mien ; 
With reinvigorated force and added spleen. 



ON THE WAVE. 95 

Lulled in her lap we trust her peaceful smiles, 

And dream of safety till her sleep is past. 
The sounder her repose, the close coils 

Fallacious hope to bind suspicion fast. 

Hope, like a serpent stings us at the last : 
We dream again, again the dream deceives ; 

Till time, advancing, scatters to the blast 
Our bright anticipations, like the leaves 
Of Autumn's woods dispersed when fancy fair- 
est weaves. 

But why of earth-born hope, of time why dream ? 
Hope flies when called, and time our speed 
defies. 
To thee, for guidance on life's various stream, 
Immortal Trust, fair daughter of the skies. 
Still let us look whatever fates arise : 
Through weal or woe, through sunshine or 
through storm, 
Though Hope expires, though time forever 
flies, 
Still may thy smiles our faltering bosom warm ; 
Ne'er absent from our thoughts be thine inspir- 
ing form. 



96 ON THE WAVE. 

Assured by thee, hark how the seamen cheer 
The night with song, or to the simple tale 
Of some companion lend attentive ear : 

Some elder shipmate, who, through many a 

gale, 
In every clime where Commerce spreads her 
sail, 
Has plowed, from boyhood up, the billowy deep. 
His comrades now applaud, and now are pale 
At some escape from death, some perilous leap ; 
Or with his sad mishaps in sympathy deign to 
weep. 

With them awhile let us discard our cares, 
And pass the night in bliss, the quiet bliss 

Of unsophisticated life ; like theirs 

Be ours the simple joys, the still abyss 

Of vacant thought, the thought that simply is. 

The calm of blest content not to aspire 

To pleasures which they neither know nor 
miss : 

The useless joys of wealth that only fire 

The evermounting wings of still uncrowned de- 
sire. 



ON THE WAVE. 97 

CANTO SIXTH. 

The midnight hour has come — silent — and sleep 

Falls on the weary lids of all profound ; 
Save those who now the lonely night-watch keep : 

To them sleep comes not on its azure round. 

Hark ! hear ye not above unwonted sound 
Of voices, and the master's stern command, 

The hurried tramp of feet, the wheeling round 
Of cumbrous spars, and creaking of each band? 
They shorten in all sail to meet the storm at 
hand. 

The stillness of Impending wrath succeeds; 
Dreadful in silence, ominous in thought ; 
Thought swifter than the course of lightning 
speeds, 
At once a thousand different journeys, fraught 
With various Death, who comes too soon un- 
sought. 
Uncalled, unwelcome; in whatever form, 

Whatever dress, he comes to make his court, 
A thousand fears precede to raise alarm, 
A thousand warring minds the trembling soul 
disarm. 
7 



98 ON THE WAVE. 

Thus in his cell the wretch, from whom the fates 

Have turned the inexorable judge's face, 
In all the dread suspense of mind awaits 
The hour appointed, soon to close his race. 
Hope, fear, anguish and love, his childhood 
days, 
Remorse for life misspent, for heaven unsought. 
His manhood's pride, ambition crushed, dis- 
grace, 
O'erwhelm him, till the hangman's footsteps 

caught, 
Burst on his trembling soul 'mid all the rush of 
thought. 

So, fearful, bursts the tempest on our heads, 

And all its voices in wild discord blends. 
As from the loftier hills the blast invades 

The warring wood which down their flank 

extends, 
Then on the groves below its force expends, 
Wide echoing through their shades along the 
plain. 
So from the clouds the spirit of storms de- 
scends 



ON THE WAVE. 99 

Upon the darkened bosom of the main, 
Loud roaring from its depths and rising in 
disdain. 

Shrill shrieks the wind along the rattling shrouds, 

And the mad waters heave the ship in air; 
Night grows invisible in all her clouds, 

And tumult hideous borders on despair. 

Loud at the trembling crew the masters swear. 
And curse the elements ; e'en on the brink 

Of endless ruin, hardened man will dare, 
Heaven's vengeance to provoke, nor pause to 

think, 
How small an act of thought may save him, or 
may sink. 

Ye lonely wanderers of the uncertain waves, 
How hard a lot is yours ! let those who long 

To spend their lives so closely to their graves. 
Pass but one night upon the deep when throng 
The enraged winds and waves to hurl along 

The fragile bark that bears their destinies : 
Contentious still which most shall do her 
wrong ; 



lOO ON THE WAVE. 

Deaf to their prayers, to their heartrending 

cries, 
That mount the air and pierce the unrelenting 

skies. 

Ye lonely mariners, God grant that ne'er, 

While through my veins life's purple current 
rolls, 

May I be doomed to follow your career. 

Though I revere your trade and honest souls: 
Sooner may Fortune to the frigid poles 

Exile us, where in unrelaxing sleep, 

Nature piles up her seas into vast moles, 

That threaten ruin wide o'er all the deep 

To those who would invade the secrets of her 
keep. 

Yes, hard your fate indeed ; but why complain ? 
It is your choice, and when upon the shore, 

Your sole desire is to be back again. 
And hurled about by ocean as before : 
The toils, the dangers which ye late passed 
o'er, 

Are soon forgotten, and e'en life's dearest ties, 



ON THE WAVE. lOI 

Your wives and children, scarce are thought 
of more, 
Until the angry billows round you rise, 
And fancy brings again their widowed, father- 
less cries. 

Such thoughts may touch your rugged breasts 
with pain, 
And worlds would then scarce tempt you 
from deciding, 
Ne'er to depart from those dear ones again,. 
If Heaven but grant the option of abiding. 
How vain the resolve ! while yet the day is 
gliding. 
Perhaps forgotten with the passing gale : 

Still the returning seasons find you riding 
The boisterous waves and trusting to that sail 
Which the next wind that blows may prove of 
least avail. 

Ye captains, be not too severe upon 

The faithful sailors ; they who meekly bear 

The toils and dangers of the sea, with none 
To smile upon them, and their trials share. 



102 ON THE WAVE. 

For you they leave their little ones to dare 
The unknown perils of the deep — for you, 
They mount the giddy masts when tempests 
tear 
The canvas from the spars, and to their view. 
Death on all sides impends, while winter chills 
them through. 

Then be not too severe ; but let your hearts 
Give heed unto compassion's pleading voice, 

And strive by kindness and by various arts, 
To lighten all their trials, and rejoice 
When they obey you, not from fear, but choice. 

Yours to command it is, and to forgive ; 
Theirs are the ills of life without the joys : 

The storms, without the golden clouds that 
weave 

The slender threads of hope through all our 
hours of grief. 

Oh ye, who on the bosom of fixed earth. 
Beneath the ancestral shelter safely rest. 

And nightly gather round the cheerful hearth 
In happy concord, and the enjoyment blest 



ON THE WAVE. I03 

Of wants supplied, mild mirth and health 
possest, 
Heedless of winter, while without in vain 
It moans, like the lone spirit of unrest, 
Or drives the whirling snow and sleety rain 
Inconstant on the roof and 'gainst the rattling 
pane, 

Grudge not the thoughts that sympathetic lead 
The mind from present joys to contemplate 

The unenvied toil, the experience hard indeed, 
Of those who on the deep, the insatiate 
Of life, pursue the arduous path of fate: 

Nor let the charitable light be seen no more, 
When the shipwrecked of sea or land await 

Kind refuge from the tempest at your door, 

And of their sad distress alleviance mild implore. 

On such reflections, such alleviance due 
To the unfortunate, a just reward 

Attendant follows in the enlarged view 
Of human failings, and the bond restored 
Of mutual interest and affection broad ; 

And that mild spirit by which the human breast, 



I04 ON THE WAVE. 

In sympathy with other hearts is thawed : 
Chief barrier to discord, and the zest 
Of every good of those whose portion here is 
blest. 

Sad is the seaman's life when the winds sweep, 
Cold from the shores where Arctic snow ex- 
tends : 
When the Spirit of Storms roams on the rest- 
less deep. 
And darkness terrible in clouds descends. 
Sad when the icy breath of winter blends 
Its dreadful horrors with the sleety storm, 

And from the grasp the encasing frost defends 
Each part, and the drenched garments that 

should warm, 
Are stiffened and congealed around the shiver- 
ing form. 

How dreadful, then, to mount the icy ropes 
Amid the fearful darkness of the night ! 

To feel all effort vain, yet know the hopes 
Of all dependent on his single might : 
Aloft to grope about with useless sight, 



ON THE WAVE. I05 

And limbs benumbed, scarce clinging to the 

mast, 

In dread expectance, from the dizzy hight, 

Each moment to be whirled by the fierce blast, 

Or from the swaying spars, headlong in ocean 

cast. 

Oh ye who plow the deep through polar seas. 
Where Winter sits enthroned on hills of ice, 

That slowly rise, by annual increase, 

Into vast mountains glittering to the skies. 
What time the retiring sun neglects to rise 

Above the Arctic world and frigid night. 

Consummate gloom, the night septentrion lies 

In vague, appalling silence, and the sight 

Starts in amaze at the strancre Alis' lurid light, 



Ye who, inured to danger and to toil, 

Through the vast fields of drifting ice ascend 

Far to the north for the balcenial oil, 

Or where Spitzbergen's frozen shores extend 
In desolate solitude, for the same end, 

The unwieldy walrus on the ice pursue. 



I06 ON THE WAVE. 

Amphibious monster, in whose structure 
blend 
The forms diverse, incongruous to the view, 
Of quadruped and fish met in conjunction true. 

What toils, what dangers round your pathway- 
rise ? 

And ye, who follow the more hazardous role, 
Of those who embark in perilous emprise 

To seek the engulfing vortex of the pole : 

Led by adventurous love or the control 
Of vanity to be known ; or yet more vain. 

By curiosity incited sole. 
Like dazzled moths, which powerless to refrain. 
Whirl round the warning light and court a death 
of pain. 

What hardships — hardships, if the term applies 
To sufferings such as yours — beset your path ? 

Ye who with Franklin toiled through storms 
and ice. 
To sacrifice your lives unto the wrath 
Of cruel Winter, and to hideous Death : 

Led by a nobler aim, to unclose the doors 



ON THE WAVE. 10/ 

Of Eastern darkness to the light of Faith, 
And turn through Commerce's stream the 

golden course 
Of India's hoarded wealth to European shores. 

To dreadful Winter, hideous Death consigned — • 
Their bleaching skeletons on Arctic coast, 

Left naked by the shrill, tempestuous wind. 
Make known the sad adventures of the lost, 
In more expressive terms than tongues can 
boast : 

More eloquently sad than words could flow ; 
By hunger, by fatigue, disease, or frost 

O'ercome, they sank in the untrodden snow ; 

How, when, or where, we may conjecture, never 
know. 

Nor be forgot their names who earlier sought 
The path to India through the icy sea : 

Who, scarcely less unfortunate, were brought 
Oft to endure unto the last degree, 
Every excruciating form of misery. 

Through dark successive years amid the ice. 
Shut by precipitate Winter — scarce set free, 



I08 ON THE WAVE. 

Ere yet again closed in its giant vise, 
Which their retreat alike and their advance 
defies. 

Fain would my Muse, Barentz, recall the tale 

Of thy disasters, and in verse relate. 
Which neither pride nor envy should assail, 

Nor time oblivious, yield to common fate; 

But fame, immortal fame perpetuate. 
If perseverance in a noble aim. 

If courage can deserve the name of Great, 
Thine to the honour were a juster claim 
Than half of theirs on whom mankind bestow 
the name. 

What multifarious risks beset the path 

Of the lone toilers of the faithless sea ! 
On them alone Heaven seems to pour its wrath, 

As though regardless of humanity. 

Sport of the wind and waves, perpetually 
At variance with each other and with man. 

To combat nature seems their destiny : 
So various are the ills that fill their span, 
Life seems but born to end in storms as it began. 



ON THE WAVE. IO9 

Strange sights are theirs to behold and contests 
fierce, 
Of dread sea monsters, which along their 
course, 
Lurk, ravenous to devour whate'er appears 
Upon the waters, and with giant force, 
Oft on each other, blinded to remorse. 
Rush in their disappointed wrath, until 

Receding Ocean bellows round its shores, 
And the red streams their gaping wounds distill, 
The whole adjacent flood with sanguine horror 
fill. 

The insatiate sharks scent the unhappy wretch, 
Whom slow disease dooms to a watery grave; 
And with instinctive light, from stretch to 
stretch, 
Follow the tacking ship along the wave. 
Expectant, till the bloated corpse they crave, 
Is passed into the bosom of the deep : 

Launched forth — but scarce the oblivious 
waters lave, 
The hapless clay entrusted to their keep, 
Than through the waves to devour, the cruel 
monsters leap. 



no ON THE WAVE. 

Nor wait less ravenous they, with gnashing 
teeth 
To rend the living, whom mishap hurls 
prone 
From high aloft into the deep beneath ; 
Or whom the ardour of the burning zone, 
Through Indian seas, unhaply, tempts alone 
To explore, in the refreshing bath, the myste- 
rious gloom 
Of the deep waters, silent and unknown : 
Whose clearness leads on safety to presume, 
And the unhappy wretch, lures to his dreadful 
doom. 

Fallacious depths ! unwary confidence ! 

Mark how the flood, late peaceful and so fair, 
Now tempest tost, forth from its womb immense, 

Belches its monsters as it were in air. 

Prolific depths I prolific in all rare. 
Strange forms of death and danger ; scarce can 
find 

Its denizens refuge whither to repair. 
Within its vastness from pursuit unkind. 
Of foes that roam its waves and haunt its cav- 
erns blind. 



ON THE WAVE. Ill 

Dim lurking in the ocean's weedy caves, 

The unsightly cuttle-fish its breadth extends; 

Until the savage wanderer of the waves, 
Or the less hostile whale, unwary, wends 
Within its giant grasp, when straight ascends 

Each slimy arm, in hideous gesture rolled : 
Contractile limbs, that by a thousand ends, 

The enormous mass grasp with adhesive hold. 

And slowly crush to death within their dreadful 
fold. 

Not kinder oft, the seaman's fate — 'tis said. 
By those who seek the whale through Arctic 
seas, 

And the vast fields of drifting ice invade, 

And brave the extremes of cold and of disease, 
That oft the many-handed monsters seize, 

The lofty masts and cordage of the ship : 
The slimy arms ascending by degrees, 

On every part, fix their adhesive grip, 

And threaten to o'erturn or sink her in the deep. 

Nor the sole terror of the waters this: 

An equal fame the Pithon's ancient boast : 



112 ON THE WAVE. 

The mighty, monster serpent of the abyss, 
Still seen, at times, on Norway's boisterous 

coast. 
Man's dread, the tyrant of the watery host : 
Tremendous coil, that spans the billows there. 
With neck high arched, in glittering scales 
embossed ; 
Its orbs far gleaming with unearthly glare, 
And the Satanic hiss launched from its tongue 
i-n air. 

Type of the primitive races which appeared. 

When first earth from chaotic darkness 
brought. 
Assumed proportion and became ensphered 

In light and harmony of heavenly thought. 

Then earth, in its excess of ardour, caught 
From force centripetal, upon its face. 

To monsters only yielded mete support. 
And to the gigantic verdure that gave place 
To the less massive growth, at length, of later 
days. 

Man then existed only in idea ; 

While through the lapse of ages earth became 



ON THE WAVE. II3 

Solidified in form, fixed in career, 

And purified by Heaven with flood and flame 
For his reception, until void of blame. 
Held in coelestial judgment — wisely even — 
Then through the world, went forth the won- 
drous fame, 
Of a new race upon the earth arriven ; 
Lord of creation styled, by the command of 
Heaven. 

Meanwhile on earth huge saurians held the seas 

In dread subjection, while upon the shores, 
The mighty mastodon uprooted trees 

And heaved the mountains with his giant force: 
Earth belched her fires, floods with tremen- 
dous course, 
Bore down the hills and leveled with the plains ; 
The deep with vast convulsion bellowed 
hoarse, 
Heaven deluged all earth with terrific rains ; 
Thus through contentious strife, her power nat- 
ure maintains. 

'Twas then the Pithon, mightiest of the deep, 
Degenerate since in fierceness and in size, 
8 



114 <^N THE WAVE. 

Scaled the vast billows with tremendous leap, 
Bright as the lightning streaming through the 

skies — ■ 
All Hell reflected in its glaring eyes : 
Or far extended on the silent flood, 

Shot back the sunbeams in a thousand dies : 
Enormous length, unmeasured magnitude — 
Its fangs and horrid jaws red dyed in dripping 
blood. 

Less startled from the clouds the seamen mark 
The mysterious spout descending through the 
air 

To meet the column from the waters dark ; 
Then with contorted outline seen to repair, 
Uncertain o'er the waste ; now here, now there ; 

Now silent seeming to uphold the skies — 

Then, swifter than terrestrial winds may bear, 

Obedient to the cloud that gave it rise. 

Along the foaming deep, like some vast serpent 
flies. 

Woe to the ship whose lot it is to wend 

Within its pathway — death and ruin wait, 
In overwhelming horror to descend 



ON THE WAVE. II5 

Upon them, powerless to avoid the fate, 
Should the discharge of firearms or less great 
Concussion of some swift-descending force, 
Aimed from aloft upon the deck, too late, 
Fail to arrest it in its headlong course, 
And parting in the deep, sink 'mid the billows 
hoarse. 

Who has not heard of Scylla, famed of old ? 

Whose Syrens, dim amid the twilight gloom 
Of Cyclopean rocks, sang, as is told. 

To entice the unwary mariner to his doom. 

Who of the Maalstrom not ! voracious womb 
Of Ocean, thirsting ever to devour : 

Far o'er the deep, the seaman hears it boom, 
And shudders at their fate, whom night's dread 

hour, 
Or tempest, or mishap, have left within its power. 

Caught by the whirling current, round and round, 
In ever-narrowing course, the ship is sent ; 

Each time still closer to the vortex wound. 
Till, with a sudden lurch and headlong bent, 
She plunges in the whirlpool's dreadful vent 



Il6 ON THE WAVE. 

That hurls her downward to the lowest bound 

Of Ocean, in a thousand fragments rent : 
Amid promiscuous monsters whirled around, 
Whose bellowing mounts to heaven and wakes 
the depths profound. 

Disgorged by the waters to the day, 
Remote, the debris rises to warn those, 

Whose dangerous avocation leads that way. 
Such are the perils seamen have to oppose : 
Such terrors ocean's unknown depths disclose : 

But e'en these vanish before the kindled wrath 
Of Heaven, who wakes the billow's giant 
throes. 

And mingles air and ocean with its breath 

In wild tumultuous strife, and wreck and hid- 
eous death. 

Hark ! hark ! hear how the raging storm. 
In unabated fury thunders round : 

How now it darkens as the clouds re-form. 
And dawn's dim, struggling light in night is 

drowned : 
Yon waves advancing with resistless bound, 



ON THE WAVE. 11/ 

Our sure destruction quickly must fulfill, 

If Heaven uplift us not from the profound: 
Omniscient Heaven, omnipotent of will. 
Whose word can raise the storm, whose fiat bid 
be still. 

Tired nature sinks submissive to Its fate. 

And sleep oppressive on the lids descends : 
Not dangers self can rouse us from the weight. 

Though duty urge, though death itself im- 
pends. 

Haste, haste, propitious day; Day who be- 
friends 
The rest denied toilers of the sea : 

That to the fainting heart new courage lends, 
New faith to trust the dark uncertainty 
Of all-involving doubt, the obscure of destiny. 



The versitication of Ossian here given, was written in 
1862 or 1863; under the impression, that many persons 
who have found the remoteness and obscurity of the origi- 
nal text, a barrier to their just appreciation of that great 
poet, might, perhaps, under the simple dress of a measured 
versification, be brought to a closer acquaintance and 
study of his works. In the accentuation of the names, I have 
followed that course which was most consonant with har- 
mony and the rules of our language. 

(119) 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 



Cathulin sat by Tura's windy wall, 

When Autumn leaves were rustling in their fall : 

His spear leaned on a rock, in bright display, 

His shield upon the grass beside him lay. 

Of Carbar were his thoughts, whom on the plain, 

His arm had numbered with the mighty slain, 

When ocean's scout, with trembling accents 

came, 
The son of Fithil, Moran known to fame. 

Arise, Cathulin, said the youth, arise : 
The northern ships lay dark before mine eyes, 
And many a hero mingles with the force 
That follows in the sea-born Swaran's course. 

Moran, the bluc-cyed chief, replied severe, 
Thou art ever trembling with unmanly fear; 
Thy terror magnifies the approaching foe. 
And prompts you to relate more than you know. 

(121) 



122 FIPST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

The ships are those of Fingal, he who reigns 
O'er Caledonia's desert hills and plains : 
In Erin's aid, the King is hither bound : 
Erin for streams and verdant fields renowned. 
Thus spoke the hero, Moran thus replies ; 
I saw their chief himself superior rise : 
Tall as a glittering rock, the spear he held, 
A blasted pine, the rising moon his shield. 
Upon the shore he sat, composed and still 
As a white mist upon the silent hill. 
Great chief, distinguished among men, I said, 
Strong is the force combined in Erin's aid : 
Fame justly thee, the Mighty Swaran calls ; 
But many valiant men are seen from Tura's walls. 
Thus I ; and thus, the monarcli answered, grave, 
As some high rock resounding to the wave : 

Who in this isle may be compared with me ? 
Feared on the land, renowned upon the sea: 
Not even heroes in my presence stand ; 
They fall to earth before my conquering hand. 
Who but great Fingal, stormy Selma's lord, 
In single combat dares to match my sword ! 
In wrestling contest, once our strength we tried, 
In years long past, on Malmor's woody side : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 1 23 

The trees, uprooted, to our feet gave way ; 
The rocks were moved in all their mosses grey, 
And streams disturbed, fled murmuring from 

our side, 
Dam'd in their courses and with altered tide. 
Three days the equal contest was renewed. 
And heroes, trembling, at a distance stood : 
The fourth beheld the King of Ocean low : 
So Fingal says, but Swaran says not so. 
Let dark Cathulin yield to his command. 
Whose arm is like the storms that rule his land. 
" No,^' spoke the blue-eyed chief, '' let it not 

be said. 
That I from any mortal ever fled : 
The dark Cathulin shall be great or dead. 
Go, son of Fithil, take my beamy spear 
And strike the shield of Semo sounding clear: 
High at old Tura's rustling gate it swings ; 
The voice of peace, is not the note it rings : 
My chiefs shall hear its echoes with delight. 
And clothe themselves in armour for the fight." 
He went and struck the bossy shield, the 

sound. 
The hills and rocks reverberate around : 



124 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Along the wood the dismal clangor spread ; 
The startled deer by woodland waters fled : 
From the high rock impetuous Curach bends, 
And Connel of the bloody spear attends: 
Fair Crugal's breast with generous ardour burns, 
And from the chase the son of Favi turns. 
*' I hear the shield of battle," Ronar cried ; 
And Lugar, '' 'Tis Cathulin's spear," replied: 
Son of the sea, thy shining arms assume ; 
In all thy sounding steel brave Calma come : 
Thou, Puno, dreadful man in war arise : 
Bring to our aid thy valour and advice. 
From Cromla's reddening woods let Cairbar 

wend, 
And thou, oh Eth, from Lena's streams descend : 
Nor thou, Caolt, delay to stretch thy side, 
As over Moran's whistling heath you glide: 
Thy side, whose whiteness rivals Ocean's foam^ 
When on Cuthon's high rocks its windy billows 

boom. 
. Now I behold the chiefs in all the pride 
Of former acts of valour round me stride. 
Their souls ambitious of the hero's praise, 
Are kindled at the deeds of other days. 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I25 

Like fiery balls their eyes conspicuous glow, 
Red rolling to behold the hated foe : 
Unto the sword the hand unconscious glides, 
And lightning beams from all their steel-clad 

sides. 
They come, as streams down from the moun- 
tains flow, 
Each rushing, roaring from its hill of snow. 
Bright in ancestral arms the chiefs appear ; 
Their heroes, dark and gloomy, follow near, 
As clouds that roll tempestuous on the sky, 
When the red meteors before them fly. 
The sound of clashing arms mounts from the 

plain ; 
The grey dogs howl between in mournful strain : 
Unequal bursts the song of battle round, 
And rocking Cromla echoes every sound. 
On Lena's dusky heath they stand arrayed. 
Like mist that wreathes the Autumn hill in 

shade. 
When broken and obscure, it pauses high, 
And lifts its curling summit to the sky. 
** Hail," said Cathulin, " sons of the narrow vale, 
Who chase the flying deer through Inisfail ! 



126 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Another sport draws near, a mighty host, 
Dark as the wave that rolls on yonder coast : 
Ye sons of war, shall we in battle join, 
Or shall we yield green Erin to Lochlin ? 
Oh, Connel, speak, thou first of mortal men ; 
To shields destructive on the battle plain ; 
Oft hast thou met the heroes of Lochlin : 
In arms paternal wilt thou shine again ? " 
*' Cathulin," the chief replied with breast serene, 
** The ancestral spear of Connel still is keen ; 
'Tis its delight to shine upon the plain. 
And mingle with the blood of thousands slain. 
But though my hand for battle gives assent, 
My heart, for Erin's sake, on peace is bent. 
Behold thou first, in youthful Cormac's war, 
The sable ships of Swaran on our shore. 
Along our coast their masts a forest make, 
Thick as the reeds that wave on Lego's lake : 
Their snowy sails spread to the winds on high. 
Seem like some mist-clothed forest to the eye. 
Whose trees successive bend as squally winds 

move by. 
Unnumbered are the heroes of Lochlin : 
The hopes of Connel yet to peace incline. 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 12/ 

Fingal himself, the first of mortal men, 

To Swaran's conquering arm would leave the 

plain : 
Fingal, whose hand, before it scatters death, 
As stormy winds disperse the withered heath, 
When echoing Cona roars through all her rills, 
And with her clouds, night settles on the hills." 

Thus Connel, brave in war, in counsel first : 
And thus, the scornful speech of Calmar burst : 
" Fly to thy silent hills, thou man of peace. 
Where rusts the sword in ignominious ease : 
On Cromla's side chase thou the dark brown 

deer. 
And stop the roes of Lena with thy spear. 
But, blue-eyed son of Semo, you who hold 
The chief command of Erin's warriors bold. 
Let Scandinavia's sons be put to flight : 
Roar through their ranks of pride in all thy 

might : 
Let no ship from Lochlin's snow-covered shore, 
Bound on the dark blue waves of Inistore. 
Dark winds of Erin, in your strength arise : 
Ye whirling winds of Lara, roar through the 

skies : 



128 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

In the tempestuous clouds let Calmar then 
Be torn in -pieces, by the ghosts of men, 
If ever chase afforded such delight 
As on the field to mingle in the fight." 

" Calmar," the Prince of Tongoram slowly said, 
'* Young son of Matha, Connel never fled : 
Swift with my friends I followed to the field ; 
But small the fame that beams upon my shield. 
In Connel's presence was the battle gained : 
The valiant conquered where my arm sustained. 
But son of Semo, hear my voice ; regard 
The ancient throne of Cormac, now thy ward. 
Let wealth and half the land itself be lost 
For peace, till Fingal comes upon our coast. 
Yet if for war, Cathulin, be thy voice. 
War and the gleam of arms shall be my 

choice : 
My joy shall be where mingled thousands fight ; 
My soul amid the gloom of war grow bright." 

' To me," replied Cathulin, " the sound of arms, 
In the red clash of thousands has its charms : 
As when in Spring the thunder rolls through 

heaven. 
And the light sunny showers behind are driven. 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL, 1 29 

Assemble now the shining- tribes of war, 
And here conduct, that I may view them o'er: 
Along the heath in order let them form. 
Bright as the sunshine that precedes a storm, 
When the west wind collects the scattered 

clouds, 
And Morven echoes over all her woods. 
But where are ye, my friends, ye who sustain 
My arm amid the dangers of the plain? 
Thou generous Cathba, dost thou come no more ? 
And thou, Duchomar, dreadful cloud in war ; 
And where art thou, oh Furgus, hast thou fled, 
When the dark storm is gathering o'er my head? 
Thou son of Rosa, of our feasts the life, 
And dreadful arm of death in battle strife : 
Down from thy echoing hills why dost thou glide, 
Like some scared roe from Malmor's woody side? 
Son of distinguished Rossa, hail ! what shade 
Saddens the soul of war," Cathulin said. 

'' Four stones," replied the chief, " rise on the 

grave 
Of Torman's youthful son, Cathba the brave. 
These hands have laid in earth Duchomar's form :; 
That dreadful cloud amid the battle's storm. 
9 



I30 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Oh Cathba, thou wert like a wandering beam, 
When the sun looks on Erin's glancing stream : 
And thou, Duchomar, valiant son of war, 
Wert like a mist from Lena's marshy shore, 
That moves in Autumn silent o'er the land, 
While thousands fall before its unseen hand. 
Morna, thou fairest of the maids that shone. 
Calm is thy slumber in the hollow stone. 
In darkness hast thou fallen, like some bright 

star 
That shoots across the desert, swift and far ; 
When lone and tired the traveller winds his way. 
And sees with sorrow the departing ray." 
*' Relate," said Semo's blue-eyed son, ''relate 
When, in what way, the heroes met their fate. 
Fell they before the warriors of Lochlin, 
Bravely contending on the battle plain ? 
Or who, unto the dark and narrow tomb, 
Has sent the strong in arms to meet their 

doom?" 
" Cathba," the chief replied, " beneath the beam 
Of dark Duchomar fell by Brano's stream : 
To Tura's rocky cave Duchomar came. 
And thus to lovely Morna breathed his flame : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 13I 

Oh Morna, fairest of the maids of earth, 
Thou who from strong-armed Cormac drew thy 

birth, 
Why here within these walls of circling stone ? 
What brings thee, Morna, to the cave alone ? 
The stream, loud murmuring, rolls along its 

course, 
The aged oak groans in the tempest's force. 
Rough lies the troubled lake beneath thine eye, 
And darkly drift the clouds along the sky : 
But thou art like the snow upon the heath; 
Thy hair the mists that round high Cromla 

wreathe, 
When from the west, the sun's departing beam, 
Gives to those curling mists a golden gleam. 
Like two smooth rocks, thy snowy breasts appear, 
Which near fair Brano's stream their summits 

rear: 
Thine arms seem two white columns to mine 

eyes. 
Like those that in Great Fingal's halls arise. 
*' From whence," the fair-haired maid replied 

with pain, 
** Whence art thou come ! oh, gloomiest of men ? 



132 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Dark are thy brows, and terrible thine eye ; 
Red as the star of the Autumnal sky : 
Comes sea-born Swaran from the land of snow ? 
Duchomar, say what knowest thou of the foe ? " 

'^ Oh, Morna, from the hill Duchomar comes, 
From echoing Cromla, where the red deer roams ; 
Three of my flying arrows felt the pain : 
Three with my bounding hunters have I slain. 
Lovely thine eyes, oh daughter of Cormac, roll 1 
To me thou art dearer, Morna, than my soul : 
This day, for thee, I pierced a stately hind ; 
High were his antlers, fleet his feet of wind." 

*^ Duchomar," calmly thus the maid began, 
" I love thee not, thou cold and gloomy man ; 
Hard is thy heart of stone, unmoved by tears, 
And dark and terrible thy brow appears. 
But son of Torman, it is thou for whom 
I pine, thou sunbeam in the day of gloom. 
The daughter of Cormac waits for Cathba here : 
Sawest thou the youth on his hills pursue the 
deer?" 

*' Long shall fair Morna wait," Duchomar 
said, 
** And many a day, e'er his return, be fled : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 1 33 

Behold this blade unsheathed, here view the 

fate 
Of him for whom in vain shall Morna wait. 
He fell where Brano rolls its stream in foam : 
On Cromla I will raise his stately tomb. 
Thou of blue-shielded Cormac, turn thy face, 
Fair Morna, turn to meet thy lover's gaze ; 
Let thy bright eyes rest on Duchomar's form, 
Whose arm is mighty as the bursting storm." 

"And is the son of Torman fallen," the maid, 
With wildly bursting voice of anguish, said 1 
" Upon his echoing hills, lies Cathba low, 
Whose generous soul dwelt purer than the snow ; 
First in the chase to stop the bounding roes. 
And first the sons of Ocean to oppose ? 
Oh, thou art dark to- me, thou dreadful chief; 
Thy cruel arm has filled my soul with grief; 
Give me that sword, thou man, thou foe severe; 
To Morna, Cathba's wandering blood is dear.'* 

He yielded to the tearful maid's request : 
She took, and with the weapon, pierced his 

breast. 
Upon the rocky floor, the hero sank ; 
As falls some torrent's undermined bank; 



134 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

And thus, with outstretched hand, the maid 

addressed : 
*^ Oh, Morna, thou in youth hast pierced my 

breast. 
Cold is the steel — death binds me in his chains — 
Oh, give to loving Moina my remains : 
The mild, the gentle Moina ; her light 
Duchomar was by day, hei dream by night. 
She on my native hills, my tomb will raise ; 
My name live in the hunter's song of praise. 
But take, oh, take the weapon from my breast ! 
Cold is the steel that sends me to my rest." 

She came, in all her tears she came, and drew 
The sword that laid the ghastly wound to view. 
He pierced the maid, her locks spread o'er the 

ground ; 
The blood flowed from her side with oozing 

sound ; 
Her snowy arms, the sanguine current dies: 
Rolling in death she lay, the cave repeats her 

sighs." 
*' Peace," said Cathulin, " to the heroes' souls : 
Great were their deeds — when battle round me 

rolls, 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 1 35 

Let them above me move upon the clouds 
And show their warUke features from their 

shrouds. 
Then shall new strength unto my soul be 

given, 
My arm sweep like the thunderbolt of heaven. 
But thou, oh Morna, on a moonbeam come 
And dwell around the window of my home, 
When peaceful thoughts, again my bosom sway 
And the loud din of arms has past away. 

Now let the strength of Erin's tribes of war, 
Advance to battle on the field before: 
Your valiant ranks my rolling car sustain, 
Rejoicing in its noise along the plain. 
Let three bright spears be placed close to my 

side, 
Then follow where my bounding coursers glide, 
That so my soul, strong in its friends may feel, 
When battle darkens round my shining steel." 
As the white, foaming torrent, down the side 
Of shadowy Cromla rolls its swollen tide. 
When loud through heaven the jarring thunders 

peal 
And dark brown night, sits upon half the hill, 



136 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Where the breached storm reveals the sky serene, 
The shadowy features of the dead are seen : 
So fierce, so vast, and terrible to view, 
The sons of Erin to the battle drew. 
Like the leviathan of ocean, whom, 
His billows follow, lashed to perfect foam. 
So does their chief, a stream of valour pour, 
As in his might, he rolls along the shore. 

The Scandinavians heard the approaching 

sound, 
As when a wintry tempest rises round. 
Their chief arose and struck his bossy shield, 
Then called the son of Arno from the field. 
** What murmur rolls along the hills," he said, 
" Like sound of flies that rise with evening's 

shade ! 
Or Erin's sons descend in warlike mood ; 
Or rustling winds roar through the distant wood. 
Such sounds from Gormal fall upon the ear, 
Ere the white summits of my waves appear : 
Go, son of Arno, from the hills survey 
The dark face of the heath along yon way.'* 

He went, but soon returned with rapid stride: 
Wild were his eyes, in terror rolling wide : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 1 3/ 

Against his side, his heart convulsive beat. 
His speech was faltering, slow, and incomplete. 
" Rise, son of ocean, chief of dark brown shields, 
The tide of battle rolls along the fields : 
I see the moving strength of Erin's war ; 
The sounding car of battle rolls before : 
The rapid car of Semo's son of fame. 
That moves along like a devouring flame. 
As a white wave, ere yet its course is spent 
Against the rocks, the car behind is bent : 
Or like the mist, that settles on the heath, 
When the bright sunbeams with the vapour 

wreathe. 
Its sides with gems adorned, sparkled bright, 
As the still sea around the boat at night ; 
Of polished yew, its beam resplendent shone : 
Its seat is builded of the smoothest bone : 
Of spears, its sides contain an ample store, 
And none but heroes stand upon its floor. 
Before the right side of the car is seen, 
The neighing horse, with high and bushy mane: 
The strong steed of the hills ; his chest i^ 

broad, 
His stride enormous and his carriage proud ; 



138 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

His hoofs resound, his mane spreads out above, 

As smoke along the rocks is seen to move ; 

His polished flanks bright in the sunlight flame — 

Sulinsifada is the courser's name. 

Before the left of the revolving wheels, 

The snorting steed, the swift son of the hills, 

With head erect and thinly flowing mane, 

And hoof of strength, bounds o'er the trem- 
bling plain. 

The name Dusronal, the swift courser bore, 

Among the stormy sons of Erin's war. 

A thousand thongs, the car above confine; 

In wreaths of foam their bits resplendent shine ; 

Thin thongs adorned with gems, with graceful 
bend, 

Along the coursers' stately necks descend ; 

The steeds that sweep along the streamy vale 

As mists that fly before the Autumn gale. 

Wild as the deer, they rush along their way : 

Strong as the eagle darting on its prey. 

Their sound is like the wintry blast that 
sweeps 

Along the snow-crowned Gormal's wooded 
steeps. 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 1 39 

High standing in the bright revolving car, 
The chief appears, the strong-armed son of war : 
The blue-eyed, dark Cathulin, known to fame : 
From Semo, King of Shells, the hero came. 
His glowing cheek is like my polished yew ; 
His eye wide rolling in its depth of blue. 
Beneath the dark arch of his brow — his hair 
Flies from his head, like flame upon the air. 
As bending forward in his rapid course, 
He wields the spear with more than mortal force. 
Fly, King of Ocean — I'ike a resistless gale, 
The hero moves along the streamy vale." 
"When did I fly ? " the incensed monarch said ; 
" When from the strife of spears has Swaran fled ? 
Or when, through fear, deprived of self-control. 
From danger shrank, chief of the little soul ? 
I met the storms of Gormal, 'mid the boom 
Of all my raving billows white with foam : 
I met the tempest raging through the sky ; 
Shall Swaran from a mortal hero fly ? 
If Fingal's self should rise before me here. 
The soul of Swaran should not yield to fear. 
Arise, my thousands, on the battle plain — 
Pour round me like the deep, resounding main : 



I40 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Around the bright steel of your monarch stand, 
Firm as the rock-bound mountains of my land 
That meet with joy the storms around them 

driven, 
And stretch their dark pines to the winds of 

heaven." 
As from two echoing hills Autumnal storms 
Roll adverse forth, approached the heroes* 

forms ; 
As from the rocks, two torrents swollen by rain, 
Meet, mix, and roar headlong upon the plain, 
So loud, so rough and dark in battle join. 
The ranks of Inisfail and of Lochlin. 

Chief mingles blow^s with chief, and man with 

man : 
Steel rings on steel, and helms are cleft in 

twain ; 
Blood bursts and smokes on the ensanguined 

ground : 
Loud on the bended bows the strings resound ; 
Darts rush through air, spears fall like arcs of 

light 
That move through heaven, and gild the face 

of night. 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I41 

As the loud roar of ocean when it heaves 
To the storm-breathing clouds its troubled waves; 
As the last peal of thunder rolls on high, 
So mounts the sound of battle to the sky. 

Though Cormac's hundred bards in epic strain, 
Had sung the mighty valour of that plain, 
To future times, their voice had failed to relate 
The names of all who there encountered fate : 
For many a hero pressed the ensanguined ground, 
And of the brave the blood poured wide around. 

Ye sons of song, mourn in elegiac strain 
The fate of brave Sithallen, early slain. 
Let the fair maid, the chaste Fiona's sighs. 
On the lone plains of her loved Arden rise. 
As in the desert fall two stately roes, 
So fell the chiefs by Swaran's mighty blows. 
When 'mid the thousands of his ocean horde. 
Like the shrill spirit of a storm he roared, 
Which dim upon the northern clouds doth come, 
Rejoicing in the mariner's sad doom. 
Nor slept thy sword ignobly by thy side, 
Chief of the isle, where the blue mists preside: 
For many a hero vanquished by thy hand, 
Cathulin, son of Semo, pressed the land. 



142 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

His svv'ord smote like the sunbeam which assails, 
With pestilential heat, the silent vales, 
When man is blasted by the baleful beam, 
And all the hills lay parching in the flame. 

On fallen chiefs Dusronal snorting strode : 
Sifada bathed his sounding hoofs in blood : 
The battle lay behind them smoking wide, 
As groves o'erturned on Cromla's desert side, 
When o'er the heath, the tempest in its might, 
Has wandered, laden with the ghosts of night. 

Let thy grief rise, oh, maid of Inistore, 
Upon the windy rocks that gird thy shore : 
Bend o'er the waves thy head while grief 

distills. 
Thou, lovelier than the spirit of the hills. 
When in a golden beam of light it moves 
At midday over Morven's silent groves. 
Pale on the battle-field thy youth is laid : 
He fell, pierced by the dark Cathulin's blade. 
No more shall valour and the love of praise. 
To match the blood of kings, thy hero raise : 
The graceful Trenmore, ended there his days. 
Oh, maid of Inistore — his dogs at home. 
Howl as they see their master's spirit come : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I43 

His bow Is in the hall unstrung — no sound 
Of chase is heard upon the hills around. 

As roll a thousand headlong waves upon 
The rock-bound coast, so Swaran's host came on : 
As meet the rocks a thousand billows so, 
The ranks of Erin met the approaching foe. 
Death mounts in all his voices from the field 
And mingles with the sound of sword and shield. 
Like two dim, distant columns, the heroes stand ; 
Each with a brand bright flashing in his hand. 
From wing to wing, the field re-echoes round, 
As when a hundred v/ielded sledges pound 
On the red anvil's face — but who are they, 
Which there on Lena's heath dispute the day ? 
Dark and obscure, like two black clouds they 

seem : 
Their swords flash like the lightning's sudden 

gleam : 
The little hills to their foundations quake : 
Enduring rocks in their grey mosses shake. 
None thus, but sea-born Swaran, king of storms, 
And Erin's car-born chief dispute in arms. 
With anxious eyes and with suspended breath, 
Their friends behold them dimly on the heath ; 



144 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

But night upon the heroes now descends 

In all her clouds, and the dread content ends. 

On Cromla's shaggy side, the nightly feast, 
Dorglas prepared, when now the strife had ceased: 
The slaughtered deer, the fortune of the bow. 
Ere from the hill, they marched to meet the foe. 
A hundred youths collect the odorous heath : 
Ten warriors light the crackling flames beneath : 
The polished stones three hundred others found ; 
The savoury repast smoked wide around. 

Cathulin thus, he, whose supreme control, 
The assembled chiefs obey, resumes his soul. 
His beamy spear, the hero made his rest. 
And to the grey-haired bard his words addrest : 
To Carril of other days, Kinfina's son : 

" Is this feast spread for Erin's chief alone, 
While on our shores the king of ocean dwells. 
Far from his hills and sounding hall of shells? 
Rise, aged Carril, and my words convey 
To Swaran, whom the boisterous seas obey : 
Tell him that here, far from the roaring waves, 
His feast, Cathulin, chief of Erin gives : 
Here let him listen to our murmuring woods, 
While night envelopes us about in clouds; 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I45 

For cold and bleak descends th' Autumnal breeze 
Along the white foam of his native seas. 
Here let him give the trembling harp its praise, 
And listen to the songs of other days." 

Old Carril went, and thus in words expressed, 
With mildest voice the king of shields ad- 
dressed : 
"Arise, great monarch of the wood-clothed land, 
Rise from thy skins, the trophies of thy hand ; 
Cathulin gives the joy of shells alone, 
And bids thee share the feast of Erin's blue- 
eyed son." 
Like the sullen sound from Cromla's wooded 
side. 
Ere yet the storm descends, the chief replied : 
*' Though all thy fairest daughters, Inisfail, 
With pleading arms, my purpose should assail, 
Their heaving bosoms pour in melting sighs, 
And mildly turn on me their loving eyes; 
Fixed as the thousand rocks that gird Lochlin, 
With breast unmoved, here Swaran should re- 
main, 
Till the red beams of early morn shall come, 
To liorht me to Cathulin's certain doom. 



146 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Soft to the ear of Swaran is the breeze, 

That from LochHn comes rushing o'er my 

seas: 
It speaks aloft in all my whistling shrouds, 
And to my soul brings back my native woods ; 
The leafy groves that wave on Gormal's side ; 
Which oft to roaring winds have echoed wide, 
As through their depths I chased the savage 

boar. 
And dyed my spear red in his streaming gore. 
Let dark Cathulin's hand this day resign 
To me the right of Cormac's royal line, 
Or from their hills his streams shall roll their 

tide, 
Red foaming, in the blood of Erin's pride." 
The monarch's words, the bard of other 

days, 
With feeble step to Semo's son conveys : 
" Sad is the voice of Swaran," Carril sighed ; 
" Sad to himself alone," Cathulin replied. 

" Oh, Carril, raise thy voice in song and tell, 
What deeds of worth in other days befel : 
With song the tedious hours of night relieve, 
And move again the silent joy of grief : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I47 

For many a chief in Erin, many a maid, 
In scenes of love and war their parts have played 
And lovely to the ear, the songs of woe, 
That from the rocks of Albion frequent flow. 
When sounds of chase are o'er and to the voice, 
Of Ossian, Cona's many streams rejoice." 

*' In other days," said Carril, " came the host 
Of Ocean's warlike sons to Erin's coast : 
A thousand ships to Ullin's lovely plain 
Came bounding o'er the white waves of the main. 
The sons of Inisfail, in arms to oppose 
The race of dark-brown shields, united rose ; 
His buckler Cairbar, first of heroes, bare. 
And Grudar in his stately youth was there. 
Long for the spotted bull, that lowing throve 
On Golbun's echoing heath, the heroes strove ; 
With equal warmth each claims the doubtful 

prize. 
And death, oft threat'ning, at their swords' 

point lies : 
But side by side the heroes trod the field 
When war arising called to sword and shield ; 
In emulation of his rival's slain, 
Each fought till fled the strangers o'er the main. 



148 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

Whose name upon our hills among the known, 
Than Cairbar's or than Gruclar's fairer shone ? 
Alas ! that e'er on Golbun's echoing heath, 
To inflame desire, the rampant bull should 

breathe ; 
White as the snow they saw him course the 

plain, 
And all their former wrath arose again. 

On the green banks of Lubar's noisy flood 
They met, and Grudar fell red in his blood. 
Fierce Cairbar, to the vale returning, came 
Where lovely Brassolis nursed her hidden flame : 
She, who late fairest of his sisters shone, 
Now poured the flowing song of grief alone. 
She sang the youthful Grudar's generous deeds, 
For whom with secret pain her bosom bleeds. 
Upon the field the youth she mourned, yet still 
Hoped his return safe to his native hill. 
White from her robe her snowy bosom rose, 
As from the cloud at night the pale moon shows. 
When just its edge looks from their skirts anew. 
And darkness still obscures the rest from view. 
Her voice was softer than the harp to raise 
The song of grief that oft bedewed her face : 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. I49 

Her soul was fixed on Grudar, he alone 
Claimed every thought, and from her look out- 
shone. 

* When shalt thou come, my love, bright in 

thine arms, 
Thou, mighty 'mid the battle's loud alarms?* 

* Take, Brassolis,' fierce Cairbar came and said, 

^ Take, Brassolis, this shield in blood dyed red ; 
Fix it on high within my hall that so 
I may behold the armour of my foe.' 

Her tender heart rushed to the maiden's side ; 
Distracted, pale she sought him far and wide : 
The youth she found, co.M in the arms of 

death — 
She found him, but to die on CromaFs heath. 
Here rests their dust, Cathulin ; yon yew's lone 

form 
Springs from their tomb and shelters from the 

storm. 
Fair moved the lovely Brassolis on the plain, 
Nor Grudar stately trod his hill in vain. 
The bard in song shall still preserve each name. 
And to succeeding times hand down their 

fame." 



150 FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 

" Pleasant is thy voice, O Carril," said the chief 
Of Erin's slumbering host — ''.well canst thou 

weave 
The words of other times, that softer flow 
Than April's gentle showers on fields below. 
When thro' the mist the sun looks on the vale, 
And clouds fly lightly over hill and dale. 

Oh, strike the harp in praise of her, my love, 
Who in Dunseaith doth like a sunbeam move : 
Bragela, she the spouse of Semo's son, 
Whom in the isle of mist I left alone. 
Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rocks, oh 

love. 
To watch Cathulin's sails on ocean move? 
Far o'er the deep the windy billow swells — 
'Tis the w^hite foam deceives thee for my sails. 
Retire, my love, night lowers her sable shroud, 
And the dark winds sing thro' my hair aloud. 
Go to my halls, there let thy thoughts be cast 
Upon the joyful scenes of days now past. 
I'll not return until the storm of war 
Has ceased, and peace in Erin dwells once more. 
Oh, Connel, speak of arms, of battles tell, 
And from my mind the thoughts of her dispel ; 



FIRST BOOK OF FINGAL. 15I 

Stately the daughter of Sorglan moves, and fair 
With her white bosom and her flowing hair," 

He said, and Connel, grave of speech, repHed : 
*' Guard well thy force, Cathulin, on every side ; 
Send forth thy spies beneath the shade of night 
And learn the strength of Erin's gathered might. 
I am for peace until the embarked force 
Of warlike Selma lands upon our shores ; 
Till Fingal, like the sunlight, on our plain 
Shall shed the glory of his arms again." 

The hero struck the shield of war's alarms, 
And sent the night-watch forth arrayed in arms : 
The rest along the desert heath reclined, 
Slept on their shields beneath the dusky wind. 
Dim on the dismal clouds, that rolled o'erhead, 
Were seen the shrouded ghosts of recent dead, 
And through the night from Lena's silent heath, 
Came the far, feeble voice of spectral Death. 



END OF BOOK I. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



SPRING 



Lo ! where smiling Spring approaches, 
Over hill and vale and plain ; 

And with cheerful step encroaches 
On the scene of Winter's reign. 

To the land of storms, the regions 
Round the dark and dreary pole, 

See ! the monarch's warring legions. 
On the clouds tempestuous roll. 

Through the scattered mists, Apollo, 
Smiles upon the ravaged land ; 

And the balmy south winds follow, 
And the dormant germs expand. 

(153) 



154 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Sounds of streams melodious flowing, 

Rise upon the gentle gale : 
And the voice of cattle lowing, 

Echoes through the lowly vale. 

Bright through fields the grass is springing; 

Woods their green resume again ; 
Through their shades the birds are singing, 

Sweetly warbling their refrain. 

But though Spring displays each treasure, 
That to bliss should win the heart. 

She scarce brings to me a pleasure, 
And I only bid her part. 

Through the new-leaved groves I wander, 

Melancholy oft and lone : 
Oft by stream in silence ponder, 

On the happier periods gone. 

Thus it is, each season present. 

For the next we sigh again, 
Which may even prove less pleasant ; 

Prove our hopes arc but in vain. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 155 

TO FLORENCE. 

Why is it that I contemplate, 

Without emotion, ''^ * 's form, 
While thy sweet smiles my soul elate 

And bid my breast with rapture warm ! 
Is it because philosophy, 
Indifferent has rendered me 

To outward charms. 
And fortified my breast with steel 
Against the woes which others feel, 

From Cupid's arms? 

It may be, for though I admire. 

The heavenly form of beauty, still, 
Not as an object of desire. 

But as a mark of Nature's skill. 
To virtue sole does she impart 
The key of access to my heart : 

Hence though I rest, 
Undazzled by fair * - 's rays. 
The slightest beam that lights thy face. 

Inflames my breast. 



156 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



TO F. «85a 

When from our sky the sun retires, 
And dimly burn the solar fires, 
How fondly memory turns again 
To the mild Summer's brighter reign ; 
And lost amid her flowery maze, 
Unconscious of the present strays ; 
Nor hears the dreary winds without, 
Though loud the tempest howls about. 

So, Florence, when afar from thee, 
My soul inclines alternately 
'Twixt hope and fear, and every day 
That still to absence adds delay, 
Seems a long month, each month a year, 
Till hope is almost lost in fear. 

Then, Fancy paints again thy face. 
In all its varied lines of grace, 
Till the fair likeness grows to me 
More real than reality: 
And hope renews again its fire, 
And doubt and fear at once retire. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 1 57 



TO F. ,85a 

SOLILOQUY. 

Bleak blows the wind from Labrador, 
And dark the tempest looming ; 

But the clouds will soon pass o'er, 
And brighter days be blooming. 

Soon will Spring, with mantle green, 

Deck the earth around us ; 
And the hand of May serene, 

Break the chains that bound us. 

How unfortunate, if then. 

In the flush of freedom, 
Winter should return again, 

Nakeder than Edom ! 

Could her spotless robe retain 

Her from violation. 
Whom the world has served with pain, 

Since its first creation? 



158 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 



TO S. 

Like thee, unto some quiet vale 
Where Peace and Virtue love to dwell, 

How pleased would I retire ! 
Surrounded there by nature's works, 
My time divide 'twixt fields and books, 

And Phoebus' tuneful choir. 



He who pursues a business life, 
Is ever plunged in care and strife 

As in the vast abyss. 
Where every strav/ a hope creates, 
And every grasp that hope defeats, 

And sinks the fancied bliss. 



His credit with the stocks doth rise ; 
With these it fluctuates and dies ; 

His numerous friends desert ; 
Ruin with awful front draws near. 
While Pride still thunders in his ear, 

And Want tugs at his skirt. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I 59 

He most enjoys the sweets of life, 
Who, like the bee that leaves the hive 

To roam the flowery plains, 
Forsakes the turmoil of the town, 
The courts of justice, desk, and gown 

For nature's blest domains. 



TO ITALY. ,855 

How long shall Superstition sway, 

With iron rule the minds of men? 
How long shall Truth and Virtue lay 

Bound captive in her galling chain ? 
Oh, ye degenerate sons of Rome, 
Is there no period yet to come, 

When ye will dare to raise the head 
And grasp the sword your fathers wore, 
Shake off the heathen dust of yore, 

And lay the tyrant dead ? 

Behold the spot where Brutus stood. 
When he to Rome her freedom gave ! 



l6o OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Behold where Pompey shed his blood, 
His country and his friends to save ! 

Here Cato in the face of power, 

Checked mad Ambitions coming hour: 
Here Cicero opposed the tide 

Of horrid faction — Will ye yet 

To a worse slavery submit, 
Than to avoid, they died ? 

Ah long shall Liberty in vain 

Call upon Rome's degenerate son ; 
Long weep o'er her neglected fane, 

And point to the fields her arms have won 
Ere yet a Cato shall arise 
To bid his countrymen be wise : 

Ere yet a Brutus dare proclaim 
Against the tyrant and the throne, 
And show the world that there is one 

Yet worthy of the Roman name. 



THE EVENING STAR. 

Bright star of evening, when thy ray 
Crowns the last lingering light of day, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. l6l 

To thee I turn my pensive eye, 
And grief and pain and passion fly: 
Passion, if love's ethereal flame 
Be not included in that name ; 
For oh thy rays, fair Venus, then 
Kindle my soul with love again. 

I think while thus I camly gaze 
Upon thy soft far-beaming rays. 
My own dear Florence's eye may be. 
At the same moment turned to thee : 
Perchance the same thoughts from her lyre 
Give vent to love's impassioned fire ; 
She thinks how now I gaze on thee. 
And feels the same sweet sympathy. 

And why, if it may not be so. 
Why feels my heart this sudden glow, 
And trembling in my bosom seems 
The confirmation of my dreams ? 

Has not the immortal soul the power, 
In the short compass of an hour, 
Nay, in an instant, to behold 
What ages laboured to unfold ? 
And may it not have power to pry 
Beyond the vision of the eye, 
II 



l62 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

And witness oft that which takes place 

E'en in the distant realms of space ? 

Oh tell me not it has not — no, 

Still let me feel that it is so, 

And still believe those signs betray 

What the soul knows, but can not say. 



MAN AND NATURE. 

The works of nature are but types of man ; 
When first in Paradise our race began, 
Man, blest with youth perpetual, knew not 
The cares and sorrows of his present lot. 

Then Spring, the only season of the year, 
Produced at once the germ and golden ear : 
The, bow that bore Pomona's ripened fruit, 
Likewise displayed the flower and springing 

shoot. 
Our youthful pleasures, manhood's strength of 

mind. 
And age's wisdom were at once combined : 
Old age, disease, and death were then unknown, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 163 

And Summer, Autumn, Winter, all were one. 
No Leo frowned upon him from the sky ; 
No Syrius gazed with pestilential eye. 

But when our race increased and grew in sin, 
Then did our present troubles all begin : 
Slow at the first, and by degrees they came, 
As God with man found greater cause of blame : 
Then youth soon fled, and manhood came with 

cares, 
And old age followed with its silvery hairs ; 
Death from the elemental strife arose. 
And to the life of man first put a close : 
Then, too, the solar system changed its plan, 
And all the varied seasons then began : 
The change at first though slight and scarcely seen, 
At length grew what it is and long has been : 
Then first mankind beheld with curious eye, 
The zodiacal signs along the sky, 
And felt the influence which each shed in turn. 
The fiery Leo and the watery Urn : 
The moon, the bright companion of the earth, 
Like woman, lost somewhat her lustrous worth ; 
At greater distance rolled her giddy race. 
And spread a pallid coldness o'er her face. 



164 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

TO THE SOUTH. 

People, to your homes return, 
Till in peace your native soils. 

Why with martial ardour burn ? 
Why so vainly hope for spoils? 

Peace alone can quiet bring, 
And a happier state restore ; 

From her laws new rights may spring, 
None will be obtained by war. 

War produces only strife, 

And the land with terror fills : 

All its fruits are ills of life, 
And how numerous those ills! 

Who shall keep your slaves subdued ? 

Who your villages from fire ? 
Who provide your families food. 

And your naked troops attire? 

Soon our arms your lawless chief 
To allegiance shall lead, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 165 

And though with fraternal grief, 
Make your rebel armies bleed. 

Wisely then, your schemes resign : 
Turn while peace may still be had : 

Gladly turn from a design 

Which the world considers mad. 



TO THE NORTH. 

People of a race who fought 
For the freedom of your name, 

Men who by their valour bought 
An undying right to fame. 

Shall the Muse be doomed to record. 
How that liberty which cost 

Many a conflict with the sword. 
By your apathy was lost ? 

Rather born to Arctic climes, 
Let her unremembered grieve : 



l66 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Rather these disastrous times, 
Wholly to oblivion leave. 

But not such the task assigned 
To the historic Muse's lyre, 

For there lingers still behind 
Some remains of ancient fire. 

An uncertain sound of tongues, 
Breaks the stillness of the air ; 

And from adamantine lungs, 
Comes the message to prepare. 

Lo ! our youth now rush to arms, 
Emulous of fame in store : 

Ready to leave pleasure's charms, 
To encounter toils of war. 

Scott shall lead them to the plain 
Where unfading laurels blow: 

Scott, who curbed with iron rein, 
The vain pride of Mexico. 

Hero of an hundred fields, 

Still new glory waits thy name : 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 167 

Lo ! Columbia's Guardian yields 
To thy hand the soldier's fame. 

Fourscore years have only shed 
On thy locks their honoured hues: 

And that age when most have fled, 
Adds but wisdom to thy views. 

With what honours shall we crown 

Thy new claims to gratitude, 
Not unworthy of the renown 

Thou shalt reap in this sad feud? 

Thou already hadst obtained, 

By thy deeds in Mexico, 
Every wreath that yet remained 

For thy country to bestow. 



TO FLORENCE. 

Had I unhappy Tasso's lyre, thy fame. 

Though less than what thy worth may really 
merit, 



l68 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Should cause succeeding times to blush with 
shame, 
That they no equal virtue should inherit. 
While earth pursued the course the fates de- 
clare it, 
So long thy reputation should endure, 

And only brighter grow as time should bear it, 
For bright examples in an age obscure. 
Still fairer seem with time and as the world 
grows pure. 



But ah ! this lyre of mine discordant grown. 

With graver themes long wandering among, 
Can ill assume the mild, the dulcet tone, 

With which thy worth and beauty should be 

sung. 
Yet practice may perfect us, and if young, 
The Muse is courted, she rewards the pains 
Of him whose lyre in her sweet service 
strung, 
No labour deems severe so that it gains, 
In time, the dear reward which for the few re- 
mains. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 1 69 

This is the poet's solace, this the light 

Which guides him on when least he feels se- 
cure ; 
And from his breast dispels the gathering night, 
And brightens where before all seemed ob- 
scure : 
'Tis this alone that leads him to endure 
Uncompensated years of midnight toil, 

And lights within his breast a flame too pure 
To be confined within the grovelling coil 
That binds the souls of most, amid earth's cares 
to moil. 

Such may it be to me ; such has it been, 
As on aspiring wing I sought my way 

Through the dim shades of vague, historic scene, 
Or through imagination's brighter day: 
And oh ! what toils shall daunt me if the pay 

Of unrequited time thy approval be? 

For well I know that reason's heaven-born 
ray. 

And thy heart's natural sincerity, 

Will weigh each part aright and temper thy 
decree. 



170 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

But since my lyre is all unfit to sing 

The praise which to thy generous worth is due, 
To my sad flame let me attune each string, 

And whisper how that flamewas caused by you. 

And oh ! be not offended if too true 
I paint the glowing feelings of my soul ; 

For love acknowledges no bounds, and few 
Have felt so well the force of its control. 
As those whom thy sweet face and sympathies 
enroll. 

Oh, that the world were like thee, then indeed 

I could be happy, happy in my love : 
Nor long for other Paradise instead ; 

Too blest in this to aspire to aught above. 

But all can not be perfect and to prove, 
The biased judgment of that world is mine : 

Its kind applause I dare not hope to move: 
To me a dearer far reward were thine, 
And all were valueless, if that could not be mine. 

E'en the world's enmity to me were naught, ' 
If thy bright smiles might always beam on me, 
And kindle all my soul into chaste thought, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 171 

Thou, the sweet burden of its minstrelsy : 
For oh ! to roam the flowery fields with thee, 
Where blandest nature all her skill displays, 

And drink the bliss of love and liberty, 
And teach the groves to whisper thy just praise. 
Were dearer far to me than fame's unfading bays. 

For what were fame without thee, could my soul 

Enjoy those beams which no kind ardour shed, 
To drive away the clouds that round life roll 

And cast their shadows o'er the path we tread ? 

Time was, when I could willingly have fled 
To the deep solitude of some lone isle : 

In nature's lap, to rest my weary head, 
And bask beneath the sunshine of her smile : 
Of pleasure and of fame, alike careless the while. 

But man needs some companion of his way ; 

Some gentle friend in whom he may confide. 
To soothe the griefs that in his bosom lay, 

And share the pleasures of life's sunnier side. 

In solitude the heart can not abide ; 
For love, the only charm of life expires, 

In the recluse, if it be not supplied 



172 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

With the supporting breath hope lends its 

fires; 
And e'en hope dies amid the ash of its desires. 

There are who tell me that my countenance 
Grows older in appearance every day; 

No longer ardour kindles in my glance ; 
The buoyancy of youth has passed away : 
They need not tell me that my hair grows 
grey, 

Or wonder that my once gay spirits sink : 
I know, I feel too well the sure decay ; 

But ah, they know not whence this change, nor 
think. 

Their interest is but gall unto the cup I drink, 

They know not, that it is thy loveliness. 
Thy virtue, noble spirit, that have fired 

My breast with feelings that were never less 
Than love in Tasso's wounded soul inspired, 
When he to Leonora sang and she admired, 

And wished the period might not be so near, 
When they should part, she as the event 
transpired, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 173 

Soon to forsake the trials of this sphere, 
He to return to weep their fate in dungeons 
drear. 

Oh, Tasso, when those prison doors were closed 

Upon thy back, how felt thy aching heart ? 
Didst thou not seem by all the world opposed, 
And in an agony of tears start 
To think that it should take such active part 
In thy distress ; that world which thou hadst 
thought, 
Through all thy life to please by thy sweet 
art ; 
That art which the Muse taught thee, seldom 

taught ; 
Yet oft, without her aid, too often vainly sought ? 

But ah, those feelings are no longer thine : 
The grave has swallowed up thy troubles, and 

Thy spirit dwells with Leonor's shade divine. 
By the still waters of some heavenly strand. 
Oh, that thy fate were mine, that* in that land 

In endless bliss with Florence I might stray : 



174 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

The same sweet Florence still, for why de- 
mand, 
The heavens aught of change in that which they 
Have formed so near divine and not of common 
clay ? 

And Is it wrong to wish that we might be 

Borne up to be united in that land. 
This moment born, if such divinity, 

Could rescue thee from Death's relentless 
hand? 

Death were to me but as a grain of sand, 
'Gainst an eternity of pleasure weighed, 

And gladly would I rend myself the band 
That binds me here to wander in the shade 
Of life's uncertain joys, if by such bliss repaid. 



TO THE NYMPHS. 

How oft, ye Nymphs, I've told my tale 
Unto your sympathizing ears ; 

How oft, alas ! without avail 

Have moved you with my burning tears. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 1/5 

Ye took compassion on my pain, 

And gathering round me while I stood, 

Your lyres took up the mournful strain, 
And breathed it through the leafy wood. 

And said ye not, that when my love 

Should wander through your shades again, 

Her cold reserve ye would reprove, 
Till she compassionate my pain ? 

But ah, scarce does her gentle foot 

Press the brown leaves that strew the grove, 

When ye with admiration mute, 
Forget me and neglect my love. 

Yet how can I reprove you, when, 

If but my lady cometh nigh, 
Myself, bound by some secret chain, 

Can only gaze, can only sigh. 



TO F. 



Farewell, my Florence, couldst tlrou feel 
How deep a pang those words impart, 



176 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Thy modesty would scarce conceal 
The feelings of thy heart. 

I know that heart responsive beats, 
To the same touch that thrills my own 

I know that every chord repeats 
The echo of love's tone. 

But oh, I can not, would not ask, 
Thy future to be linked with mine, 

While doomed to the ungrateful task 
Of seeking fortune's shrine. 

Yet say, fair maid, if fate should guide 
My bark to this loved isle again. 

With every modest want supplied, 
Which reason would obtain, 

Say, wilt thou wait to share with me 
The sunlight and the shade of life, 

In some spot sheltered from the sea 
Of the world's ceaseless strife ? 

Oh, gently, if thou dost consent,-. 

As well I know thy heart would yield) 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. XJJ 

How bright a ray of hope were lent 
To guide me o'er life's field. 

What toil should weary then the arm 
That rose to effort for thy sake ? 

What danger fill me with alarm, 
If thine the cause at stake .^ 



TO NEPTUNE. 

Oh, Neptune, to thy care consigned, 

While we our devious path. 
Along thy watery realm wind 

Subject to all its wrath. 

Grant that thy billows may not rise, 

Our progress to oppose ; 
But locked in slumber's calm embrace, 

May guard their anger close. 

And ye, ye winds, with gentle breath, 

Waft us upon our way. 
From these dark, cloudy realms of death, 

To fields of brighter day ; 



178 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

To that fair isle whose bracing wind 

And genial sun inspire, 
Sweet health and buoyancy of mind 

And loftier desire. 



AUTUMN. 

The brightest season of the year, 
Is when the forest leaves grow sere : 
When Autumn comes with varied hue 
To paint the landscape all anew. 

In Iris' many coloured bow 
She dips her pencil to and fro, 
Till all the parts blend with each other 
And harmonize one with another. 

How beautiful the landscape seems, 
The fields, the woodlands, hills, and streams, 
All glowing in their russet hue, 
Beneath a sky so calm and blue. 

When Spring puts forth her tender buds, 
And the young leaflets fringe the woods, 
I think, how bright would life appear 
Could Spring be with us all the year : 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I79 

And when the Summer in its prime 
Brings back the golden havest-time, 
And every wheel of action glows 
With nature's great, pulsating throes, 
Then, too, life, like a golden beam, 
Glides swiftly down on pleasure's stream : 

But Autumn sheds a softened light 
That warns us of the approaching night : 
It is the twilight hour of life 
That soothes and quiets all our strife: 
That hour when least we love to part 
With the dear objects of the heart. 
A softened sadness seems to invade 
Each see. _ A mingled light and shade ; 
As though it were expressly given 
To lead our quiet thoughts to heaven. 



TO THE ZEPHYRS. 

Oh ye winds, have I in vain 
Breathed my passion and my pain 
Unreservedly to your ear, 
And, alas ! ye would not hear ? 



l8o OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

When that passion swift and strong 
Bore my yielding soul along, 
Then my words ye seemed to say, 
Ye to Florence would convey. 

Why, when sorrow dim'd my eyes, 
Why did ye repeat my sighs, 
And remove the starting tear. 
If, alas! ye did not hear? 

Ah ! it is the fault of love 
To imagine every grove, 
Every wind must sympathize 
With the grief that fills its eyes. 



TO THE NAIDES. 

Fly, oh sea-green sisters, fly. 
Swiftly to that emerald isle 

Where the light of Florence's eye, 
Sheds the radiance of its smile. 

There upon your silver lyres, 

Bright with ocean's fairest pearls, 

Of my soul's consuming fires. 
Breathe amid her auburn curls. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 18.I 

Tell her all that I now feel ; 

That the wound which I endure, 
Never could another deal, 

Never can another cure. 

Bid, oh bid her gentle ears 

Heed the zephyrs' whisperings, 

For they bear my burning tears. 
And my sighs upon their wings. 



TO MOTHER. 
Though dulcet zephyrs every day 
Around these emerald islands play 

Through all the year, 
And the green foliage of the grove, 
And the sweet cushet's notes of love. 

Are always here ; 

Though luscious fruits may tempt the eye, 
And nature all man's wants supply 

Through every stage. 
And time no change of seasons know 
But 'neath the sun of Summer glow. 

From age to age ; 



J 82 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

What charms have these can compensate 
For thy dear presence, left of late 

Through some ill star ! 
To me these, wealth and fame appear 
As trifles now no longer dear 

Since thou art far. 

Alas ! what folly bid me leave 
Thee, dearest parent, when so brief 

A time remained, 
In which I could enjoy thy light, 
And cares, in some degree, requite, 

For me sustained ! 



TO A SWALLOW. 

Hail ! gentle swallow, kindly come 

To greet us on our way, 
From whence fair Cuba's mountains loom 

And fields of azure lay: 

But tell me, in thy lofty flight. 
Hast thou beheld the wrath 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 183 

Of tempests gathering in their might 
Along our future path? 

Ah ! no, thy gentle tale portrays 

No dangers brooding nigh : 
But only breathes of halcyon days 

And winds that sweetly sigh. 



PAST AND PRESENT. 

Fair Spring with all her balmy breezes comes • 
The hills in all their moss grow green around : 
Through field and bower the bee industrious 
hums : . 
The vales with herds and bleating flocks re- 
sound. 
Again the flowers enamel o'er the ground ; 
The streams flow sparkling to their native sea : 
Through every grove the sylvan choir abound, 
And pour their notes of love and melody : 
All nature wakes to life ; to light and joy 
save me. 



1 84 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Such scenes, such sounds could once impart de- 
Hght, 

And still it pleases to recall again: 
The visions of the past are always bright ; 

To me the present is a death of pain. 

Oh who would wish to live this life again ! 
To buy its pleasures with such misery ! 

Some there may be, some who with less disdain 
Can turn its trifles to a source of glee : 
I can not envy them their mind's felicity. 



A WISH. 



Oh for the blest, the joyful day, 
When I may leave these walls of clay, 
Where all that's low and sordid join 
To banish every thought divine. 

Through shadowy groves, through fields of 
green. 
Where Heaven in every leaf is seen, 
Where every blade of grass displays 
At once its wondrous skill and praise, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I85 

My chief delight it was to stray 
At morn, or at the close - >i" day, 
And with the mute creation raise 
My thoughts to Heaven in silent praise. 

There I could spend hour upon hour 
In admiration of God's power: 
Nor past one moment such in vain, 
Since to the mind each brought its gain. 

I loved to wander by the stream, 
When Autumn's mild, ethereal beam 
Shed a soft sadness o'er tlie scene. 
And drew us from the things had been ; 
Drew us to higher, holier thought ; 
To things that here on earth are not. 
And when the end approached at last, 
And the fair seasons all had past, 
A brighter vision rose before. 
Where change and death should be no more, 
But Spring, unclouded, rule sublime 
Through an eternity of time. 



l86 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

TO J. 

They ask me to forget my home, 
And praise this sunny land ; 

That spot where memory loves to roam 
With childhood hand in hand. 

And though it wrings a pang from life 
To think of home elsewhere ; 

Where fortune lays our fields of strife, 
Our interest should be there. 

And I for thee, will love this land, 

Nor long for other spot ; 
'Tis bliss to me where thou art, and 

'Tis pain where thou art not. 

Yes, lovely does this land appear 
Where constant summer reigns ; 

Where birds sing sweetly all the year, 
And wild flowers deck the plains. 

Oh, who would change it for that clime 
Where blighting winds prevail, 

To blast the harvests ere their prime 
And every floweret frail ! 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 18/ 

That land whose forest-clothed hills, 

Through half the circling year, 
Are shrouded deep in snow, that chills 

Each bud into despair; 

Whose streams their silvery murmurs cease. 

In icy chains confined, 
Till Spring again comes to release 

Them with its balmy wind. 

There, blighted by the wintry breath, 

Each pulse of life grows still : 
Till nature seems entombed in death 

And every object chill. 

The gentle songsters of the grove, 
From woodlands brown and sere, 

In milder climes to breathe of love, 
Fly with the fading year. 

Hither the swallows annual roam 

To pass the sv/ift-winged hours ; 
Here Philomelia makes her home, 
'Mid blooming Winter bowers. 



I88 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Upon its restless wing the bee 

Pursues its swift career ; 
And fragrant honey from each tree, 

Doth gather all the year. 

How lovely are the soft blue skies 

Of this fair land of ours ! 
How bright the rainbows that arise, 

With the departing showers ! 

Oh, softly sighs the wind that breathes 
From Flora's fragrant groves ; 

Or through the jasmin's tangled wreaths. 
And broad-leaved plantain roves. 

Though poor the fields we till may seem. 

Compared with other lands, 
The gentle shower, the tropic beam, 

Change them to fertile sands. 

What if no rugged mountains rise. 

Or hills the scene to vary. 
Or sweetly babbling brooks surprise 

The traveller, parched and weary ? 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 1 89 

We miss all these, 'tis true, yet find 

On these scarce-wooded plains, 
A balmy softness in each wind, 

Unknown where Winter reigns. 

You bid me seek for fame elsewhere, 

And leave this land of flowers : 
Its bright blue skies and balmy air ; 

Its fragrant orange bowers. 

But do you not know that I come 

To lead the Muses here ; 
Here to erect their winter home, 

Their genial shades to rear? 

*Tis in the sunny clime that best 

They love to pass the hours : 
In Araby's spicy groves to rest, 

And stray through fields of flowers. 

They fly from storms and wintry wind ; 

From fields and forests bare : 
From gulfs in icy chains confined, 

And snow-fields' dazzling glare. 



■go OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

I know a brighter clime than this; 

A land of mountains blue : 
Of verdant fields and streams we miss, 

And skies of lovelier hue. 

There the majestic palms uplift 
Their radiant heads on high ; 

And every fruit and flower, the gift 
Of nature, meets the eye. 

But ah ! where Liberty lies enchained, 

The Muses languish there : 
They fly from groves by strife profaned, 

And Bigotry's baneful air. 

Here let us hope the tuneful Choir, 

Contented will remain : 
Their humble votary here inspire. 

To raise the undying strain : 

Till fortune shall reverse the doom 

Of that fair Paradise : 
And bid the tuneful Muses come. 

And Liberty arise. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I9I 

TO J. 

Again the rosy-footed Dawn 

Walks radiant through the east ; 
The dew-drop trembles from each thorn, 
And sparkles in the light of morn, 
Upon the rose's breast. 

She comes with sound of lowing herds, 

And from each nodding grove, 
The voices of the happy birds, 
In language sweeter far than words. 

Pour forth their tender love. 

And fairer than the rosy dawn. 

Thy smiles, dear lady, are : 
And though of keenest sorrow born. 
Than dew-drops on the rose or thorn, 

Thy tears are brighter far. 

But oh ! when like the lucid brook. 

Thy soul in music flours, 
The unwritten language of love's book. 
The heart, in every tone and look, 

In every action glows. 



192 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

And dear to me it is indeed, 

To feel that I, alone, 
May claim, oh love's delightful meed. 
That volume's secret thoughts to read, 

In gesture, look, and tone. 



TO J. 
Oh for wings to fly with thee 
To that land beyond the sea, 
Where the Sprin^-s perpetual reign, 
Fair as Eden clo^-es the plain. 

Here we live in discontent ; 
Every aspiration pent, 
Close and closer with each year. 
In the mind's contracting sphere. 

What is there that we should love 
These wild, desert scenes above 
Verdant fields and mountains blue. 
Streams and skies of lovelier hue ! 

Scarce a warbler of the grove 
Whispers here its tender love : 
Here no fruits and flowers are found 
As in that fair land abound : 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I93 

Nature, with a sparing hand, 
Deals her blessings to this land, 
And in vain our cares are spent 
To induce her to relent: 
Every effort proves in vain, 
All our labours without gain : 
Haste, oh hasten then with me 
To that land beyond the sea. 



TO J. 

One day when from misfortune flying, 
I wandered on an unknown coast. 

And hope's fair beacon light was dying, 
And friends and all to me seemed lost, 

A tender maiden bright in childhood. 
With all its simple, winning w^ays, 

Came t6 me from the neighbouring wild-wood, 
With joy and sunshine on her face. 

She tried to lighten all my trials 
And kindle hope's fair flame again ; 
'3 



194 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

And a sweet balm from Christian vials, 
Poured to relieve my aching pain. 

And soon, oh soon, her wiles succeeded 

In driving all my cares away ; 
And but one wished-for bliss was needed 

To seal that sweet recovery. 

One little word, one kind assurance, 
That never from me would she part ; 

But stay to lighten still life's durance 
With her sweet, Heaven-bestowed art. 

But ah, the Heavens, my prayers unheeding, 
For her had other cares in store ; 

And soon her sunlight form receding, 
Left me pleading on the shore. 

She left me pleading, but when going, 

Gave to me her playful coon, 
With the assurance in bestowing, 

That she would reclaim it soon. 

Ah, how little I surmised. 

That the bright-eyed little thing, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I95 



Was but Cupid's self-disguised, 
And would soon be on the wine. 



fc>* 



To my bosom close I drew it, 
To defend from outward harm, 

And ere yet I scarcely knew it. 

Love had breathed in me his charm. 

When the little urchin left me, 
And I felt love's glowing heat^ 

Then I knew all peace bereft me ; 
Laughing, saw the whole deceit. 

But return, oh I beseech thee. 
Gentle maid, to ease my pain ; 

Or with kindly words to teach me 
Liberty of heart again. 



TO FLORIDA. 

Ye desert scenes, ye thriftless sands 

Of Florida, farewell : 
When fortune points to fairer lands, 

Why should we longer dwell? 



ig6 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Farewell, and if some passing hours 
Of pleasure here were found, 

We only think of them as flowers, 
Whose thorns have left a wound. 

Let here the orange and the lime 
In sweetest fragrance blow. 

For those who find thy balmy clime 
A refuge from their woe. 

To them indeed thou mayst become 

An earthly Paradise ; 
And all thy desert wastes yet bloom 

Through toiling man's device. 

Yet labour adds not here of pain 

Unto his sum of toil. 
It pours a balm through every vein, 

And in his wounds an oil. 

Then let him come and here enjoy 
That blessing which when gone, 

Of all our pleasures leaves alloy. 
And life itself undone. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. I97 

May other lands to us extend 

A welcome as sincere, 
Who while we leave thy shores, a friend, 

Can shed no parting tear. 



TO IDA. 

Those little foot-prints in the sand, 

How much they told to me ; 
As sad and lonely in that land, 
I traced them on the wave-worn strand 
And thought of thee. 

Of thee, whose gentle voice alone. 

Could bid me then be gay : 
And in whose childlike features shone 
The expression radiant of one 
Then far away. 

I thought of thee, and as I past, 
The midday sun rolled on : 
The gathering shadows lengthened fast. 
Till from the western verge at last. 
The orb its farewell shone. 



198 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Then homeward bent, I traced my way 

Along the winding shore : 
The rocks were there, the sands, the bay, 
But those dear foot-prints, where were they ! 

The waves had wandered o'er. 



Ah, thus it is, I thought, in life ; 

The attachments which we form. 
Are flowers too delicate to thrive 
Amid this world's incessant strife 

They perish in the storm. 



TO FATHER. 

What strange fortuity is this 
That seems to urge me on, 
Always in sad misfortune's train. 
In search of visionary bliss, 

To follow still through grief and pain, 
From land to land, from zone to zone ! 

Happier thy lot, my aged sire, 
Though 'mid ingratitude 



• OCCASIONAL PIECES. I99 

Prolonged and many a year of toil, 
Not to have known the strange desire, 
That drives me from my native soil, 
And all that's dear, in search of good. 

Happier thy lot, whose love can find 
One spot to call its own : 
Where every grove has known thy grief 
And whispers to the sighing wind, 
Of aspiration's blighted leaf, 
Of flowers that have not blown. 

Ye desert sands, have ye not drank 
Often the tears that fell 
For disappointments not my own r 
Ye streams that by the palm-clothed bank, 
Wander through solitudes unknown, 
My grief can ye not tell ? 

And ye are w^itness, too, how oft 
I would have drowned in tears 
The fever of an anxious brain ; 
Did but that solace, sweet as soft. 
To my own sorrows still remain. 

From the wrecked hopes of other years. 



200 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

TO MOTHER. 

This land is but a vale of tears, 

In which we roam from stage to stage, 

Scarce dreaming of the flight of years 
Until bowed down with age. 

In life's young morn we only see 
The golden sunlight of our way : 

The shadows are vacuity 
Where little sunbeams play. 

Then hope grows with the budding flower, 
And with the year's maturing fruit, 

Reaps the rich harvest every hour 
Of satisfied pursuit. 

But when the days of Autumn come, 

And the bright sunbeams grow more rare, 

The shadows seem to fill their room 
With substance as it were. 

The place which hope within us held, 
As hope wanes with the passing flowers. 

By resignation then is filled, 
Born of the fading bowers. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 201 

That spirit which shall keep life green, 
When leaf and bloom alike are gone, 

And we survey in its gay scene, 
The reality alone. 

And why should childhood not behold 
This world in all its brightness shining ; 

And as the clouds of life unfold, 
See but the silver lining? 

But as our boat floats down the stream, 
And leaves behind the flowery meadow, 

Then on our pathway let the beam 
Be intermixed with shadow : 

And let the growing silence bring 

A sadness to the inner spirit, 
To wean us from each earthly thing, 

To heaven which we inherit. 

Soon will the stream grow broad and deep ; 

The dangerous rapids soon be gone : 
And though amid the gloom we sleep, 

The flood shall bear us on. 



202 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

And why should the aged helmsman turn 
Dismayed to gaze on shades around ? 

Why in the heaven-born spirit yearn 
For that that's past to sound? 

Should life not be gladdened by the glow- 
That lies upon the stream before ; 

That light from the land to which we go, 
Where sorrows are no more ? 

Oh, yes, soon will the river meet 

The gulf that laves that heavenly strand, 

Where a fair bridge for trusting feet, 
Its waters dark hath spann'd. 

Those who have found the stream of life, 
And washed the stain of sin away ; 

Those who have not, amid the strife 
Of waters, shall sink from day. 

But, Mother, I know, when the time is at hand, 
I know that you will pass safely o'er 

That bridge of Faith, to that beautiful land. 
That waits you on that shore. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 203 

And my soul flows forth in burning tears, 
When I think that I may not be there, 

To watch when your boat in the river appears, 
And fly to meet you through air. 

Yet I know there are two, at least, who will wait. 
When the sign of your coming is now at hand, 

To lead you safe through the golden gate 
That enters that blissful land. 

Dear Mother, you are farther down the stream. 
And our boats, they are wandering wide apart ; 

But my spirit flies to you in its dream. 
And your image is in my heart. 

I am still in the rapids, striving still 

To guide aright the frail canoe ; 
And the waves seem at times about to fill, 

Or the rocks to dash it through. 

But what is that ! Is it a beam 

Of hope that shines from yonder shore ? 

Mother, you are farther down the stream, 
Oh, tell me, can you see the light before? 



204. OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. ,87a 

When Autumn, with her pensive train, 
Returns to rule the sadden'd year, 

And silence holds extended reign 
O'er field and forest sere ; 

If, then, through lonely woodland ways, 
Where modest flowers retiring bloom, 

Chance should conduct thy thoughtful pace, 
Till sadden'd with the gloom ; 

Then wilt thou pause, perchance, to recall 
The cherished friendships of the past. 

Which, like the fading flowers of Fall, 
Were born too fair to last. 

But time, which hallows e'en our woes. 
Shall hallow friendship's sacred spell, 

Like fragrance of the withered rose. 
Fond memory round it dwell. 

Oh, then, if when thy thoughts return 
To dwell with the departed hours, 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 20$ 

And memory gathers in her urn, 
Affection's scattered flowers, 

If then, one thought shall rise to impart 

A halo to these sadden'd days, 
One wish be mine, within thy heart. 

To find one vacant place. 



IN THE SAME. ,87a 

We meet on earth to part, a little while, 

To know each other, than to know no more : 

To cherish friendship only to exile, 
And find an aching void unfelt before : 
A void time may not fill, till on the shore 

Of Far eternity. Heaven shall again. 
The parted reunite, the lost restore : 

If this is all of solace left our pain. 

Though this be all, hope hath no higher end to 
attain. 



206 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

TO A FRIEND. Feb. 15, 1878 

Oh, for the days of youth again, 

That I might win thy heart : 
That I might love without the pain 

Of feehng we must part. 

Alas ! how often fate ordains, 

Their lives disjoined to run ; 
In whom a kindred spirit reigns ; 

Whose sympathies are one. 

Our sunlight and our shadows blend, 

But on our path to sever : 
Our mutual joys and loves soon end ; 

Our hopes go out forever. 

And must it still be mine to dash 

The sunlight from my way, 
Lest hope should build too idly rash, 

Build but to see decay? 

I will not ask to win thy heart, 

I only ask to love : 
Mine be the pain if thus we part, 

Thine joys anew to prove. 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 20/ 

TO THE SAME. May^oth 

Beauty, thou hast adorned with grace, 

The gift of nature not of art : 
And thought's fair gems glow on thy face, 

Born of a kindly heart. 

But Heaven bestowed not on thy form 
Thy varied charms so soon to be 

Lost in wild fashion's ceaseless storm, 
Or life's monotony. 

Thou art young, and life is full of hope. 

Yet time flies ever onward fast ; 
And while we seem to mount the slope, 

The summit may be past. 

Then waste not thou thy precious years 
In worthless pleasure's vague pursuits ; 

Or wandering through the vale of tears. 
In search of bitter fruits. 

Yet let not wild ambition lead 

Thine impulse to excel astray, 
Lest thou too broadly scatter seed, 

Or reap the barren way. 



208 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

To know our chiefest forte should be, 
To anticipate the reward of toil : 

To reap from vague uncertainty, 
Our future's richest spoil. 



[written in a copy of tasso. 1878.] 

Companion of my wandering years, 
Thou treasure of the laureled dead, 

From thee I part not without tears, 
Which manhood well may shed. 

Through many a land and distant clime, 
When wandering, often lone and sad. 

How didst thou speed the flight of time, 
And make my bosom glad ? 

So may thy page beguile the hours 

Through life, of this fair maid to whom, 

I give thee with the budding flowers 
Of friendship's future bloom. 

Oh may her mind find that delight 
Which I in thee have ever found; 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 209 

And with the poet lift its flight 
Above life's trivial round. 

Farewell, thou justly cherished page ; 

Thou that didst have the magic power, 
In grief my bosom to assuage, 

And brighten joy's glad hour. 

Dear wouldst thou be to me indeed, 
Shouldst thou direct her generous aim: 

To the Pyerian fountain lead ; 
To laurel wreaths of fame. 



[from the stray leaves of m. j. c] 
EMOTION. 

Deep in the human bosom lie 
The springs of feeling that supply 
Emotion's strangely checkered stream : 
And though so small and weak they seem, 
Like the small pebbles in the lake, 
The sea of life each helps to make. 
14 



2IO OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

Yet who would think so small a stone 
Cast in the waters, one by one, 
Would cause the lake to overflow, 
Did not experience prove it so ? 
And thus it is with life's full cup : 
Little emotions fill it up. 

The mention of a friend or foe, 
The bird's sweet song of joy or woe, 
Or fragrance of some well-known flower, 
Or wild bee humming through the bower, 
Often create emotions strong 
That sweep the yielding soul along : 
Sensations which the heart may feel. 
But can not unto others tell : 
And joy and pain in turn supplies 
The origin from whence they rise. 
But often anger, often hate. 
Or dark revenge predominate. 



TWILIGHT. M. J. c. 

Behold ! the sun sinks in the west 
Behind the golden clouds that rest 



OCCASIONAL PIECES. 211 

Upon the verdant hills, yet ere 
He terminates his bright career, 
A moment lingers on the bound, 
And pours a mellow warmth around. 

Calm twilight with her softened shades, 
The fading landscape now invades : 
No more the herd lows on the hill ; 
And sounds of bleating flocks grow still : 
Through all her voices nature sleeps. 
Save the low note the cricket keeps. 

Now, while the peaceful twilight lasts, 
And midday's sun no longer casts 
Its fiery beams, nor evening dews 
The poison through our veins infuse. 
With nature let us walk alone, 
And learn her many ways unknown ; 
While all is still, ask heaven to bless 
Our dream of future happiness. 

How kind an act it was of Heaven 
That this sweet hour of rest is given 
To all of nature's works, behold ! 
The flowers their fragrant petals fold : 
How lovely in their sleep they seem, 
Like fairy objects of a dream ; 



213 OCCASIONAL PIECES. 

And see ! the bee re-seeks its hive, 
And the industrious ant its cave. 

Upon the labours of the past, 
Our serious thoughts now let us cast ; 
Resolve our many faults to mend, 
And ask that Heaven the light may lend, 
Through all the paths that lead astray, 
To guide us still in virtue's way. 

Now, to some friend we may impart 
The joy or sorrow of our heart ; 
And undisturbed by worldly strife, 
Plan bright the warp and woof of life. 

The hour is lovely, but behold ! 
While round the scene our glance is rolled, 
The softened hues of twilight fade, 
And yield to evening's deeper shade. 
Night comes and darkness gathers round : 
Let the harp cease its pleasant sound. 



[END.] 



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